Constructing subdivision rules from polyhedra with identifications (Q691535)

This work forms a part of the author's program studying finite subdivision rules, which were introduced by \textit{J. W. Cannon} et al. [Conform. Geom. Dyn. 5, 153--196 (2001; Zbl 1060.20037)] with the goal of understanding when subdivision rules are conformal. A finite subdivision rule on the 2-sphere is a CW-complex, homeomorphic to the 2-sphere, together with a finite rule for dividing each 2-cell, or tile, into smaller tiles, where finite means that only finitely many tile types appear upon arbitrarily many iterations of the rule. The present work is concerned with constructing explicit finite subdivision rules which correspond to a large class of hyperbolic 3-manifolds, in the pursuit of understanding the combinatorial structures of conformal tilings. The question of determining whether a subdivision rule is conformal has considerable significance, in part due to a connection with Gromov hyperbolic groups. It was shown by \textit{J. W. Cannon} and \textit{E. L. Swenson} [Trans. Am. Math. Soc. 350, No.2, 809--849 (1998; Zbl 0910.20024)] that a subdivision rule for a group being conformal is equivalent to the group acting cocompactly, properly discontinuously and isometrically on hyperbolic 3-space; it is conjectured by Cannon that every Gromov hyperbolic group with a 2-sphere at infinity acts on hyperbolic 3-space cocompactly, properly discontinuously and isometrically. However, determining whether an arbitrary subdivision rule is conformal is not easy, and the examples constructed here and in the author's other works (see [Conform. Geom. Dyn. 14, 1--13, (2010; Zbl 1196.57012)] for more 3-manifold examples) are the first substantial families of examples of finite subdivision rules. Given a group acting properly discontinuously and isometrically on hyperbolic 3-space, the sequence of tilings of the sphere under consideration is obtained as follows: beginning with a single fundamental polyhedron, at each stage attach the neighboring translate of the polyhedron to each exposed face. Under certain assumptions on the polyhedra, the boundaries of these unions of polyhedra are shown to be topological spheres at every stage. Furthermore, the CW-complex structure on the boundary varies between stages by replacement according to a finite rule on each face, or 2-cell. The main results of the paper are that when a manifold is obtained by gluing all-right polyhedra (these manifolds are closed), and, separately, the manifold satisfies other particular combinatorial conditions (these manifolds have boundary) then the replacement rule can be turned into a finite subdivision rule.