Simplicial volume and fillings of hyperbolic manifolds (Q640310)

Let \(M\) be a hyperbolic \(n\)-manifold whose cusps have torus cross-sections. In [J. Differ. Geom. 85, No. 2, 229--270 (2010; Zbl 1211.53066)], the authors constructed a variety of nonpositively and negatively curved spaces as \(2\pi\)-fillings of \(M\) by replacing the cusps of \(M\) with partial cones of their boundaries. These \(2\pi\)-fillings are closed pseudo-manifolds, and so have a fundamental class. In the paper under review the authors show that the simplicial volume of any such \(2\pi\)-fillings is positive, and bounded above by \({\text{Vol}(M)\over\nu_n}\), where \(\nu_m\) is the volume of a regular ideal hyperbolic \(n\)-simplex. As an application, the authors obtain information about the simplicial volumes of some 4-dimensional homology spheres described by \textit{J. G. Ratcliffe} and \textit{S. T. Tschantz} [Topology 44, No. 2, 341--350 (2005; Zbl 1064.57023)] answering a question of \textit{I. Belegradek} [Algebr. Geom. Topol. 6, 1341--1354 (2006; Zbl 1137.20035)] and establishing the existence of 4-dimensional homology spheres with positive simplicial volume.