Geometric triangulations and highly twisted links (Q6164258)

It is conjectured that every cusped hyperbolic 3-manifold admits a geometric triangulation into positive-volume ideal hyperbolic tetrahedra. This is known, for example, for 2-bridge knot complements and for punctured torus bundles [\textit{F. Guéritaud}, Geom. Topol. 10, 1239--1284 (2006; Zbl 1130.57024)]; also, every cusped hyperbolic 3-manifold admits a finite cover with a geometric triangulation [\textit{F. Luo} et al., Proc. Am. Math. Soc. 136, No. 7, 2625--2630 (2008; Zbl 1144.57016)] and has a decomposition into into convex ideal polyhedra [\textit{D. B. A. Epstein} and \textit{R. C. Penner}, J. Differ. Geom. 27, No. 1, 67--80 (1988; Zbl 0611.53036)]. In the present paper, the authors show that sufficiently highly twisted knots admit a geometric triangulation. Specifically, the first main result states that, for every \(n \ge 2\) there exists a constant \(A_n\) such that, if \(K\) is a link in \(S^3\) with a prime, twist-reduced diagram with \(n\) twist regions and at least \(A_n\) crossings in each twist region, then the complement of \(K\) admits a geometric triangulation (such highly twisted links are known to be hyperbolic when there are at least six crossings in each twist region, cf. [\textit{D. Futer} and \textit{J. S. Purcell}, Comment. Math. Helv. 82, No. 3, 629--664 (2007; Zbl 1134.57003)]). The authors prove also a more general result for \textit{fully augmented links} obtained by adding to each twist region an unknot (``crossing circle'') encircling the twist region, and then removing all crossings in each twist region (the original link is obtained by Dehn filling of the crossing circles); the more general result allows arbitrary Dehn fillings of the crossing circles (or leaving some crossing circles unfilled). Finally, the authors give quantified versions with explicit constants of their results for infinite families of examples (extending work of \textit{F. Guéritaud} and \textit{S. Schleimer} [Geom. Topol. 14, No. 1, 193--242 (2010; Zbl 1183.57013)] on Dehn fillings on one cusp of the Whitehead link complement).