Rigidity of representations in \(\text{SO}(4,1)\) for Dehn fillings on 2-bridge knots (Q953156)

The paper under review addresses the question of whether a Dehn filling on a compact orientable hyperbolic \(3\)-manifold \(M\) with a torus boundary admits other discrete, faithful representations in \(\text{SO}_0(4,1)\) than its holonomy in \(\text{SO}_0(3,1)\). For the unfilled case \(M\), \textit{M. Kapovich} [Math. Ann. 299, No.~2, 341--354 (1994; Zbl 0828.57009)] proved global rigidity. That is, every discrete and faithful representation of \(\pi_1(M)\) in \(\text{SO}_0(4,1)\) is conjugate to the holonomy of its hyperbolic metric in \(\text{SO}_0(3,1)\). The main result of the paper claims that the same holds for infinitely many Dehn fillings on a hyperbolic two-bridge knot exterior \(M\). Kapovich also showed local rigidity for infinitely many Dehn fillings. This means that there is no continuous non-trivial deformation in \(\text{SO}_0(4,1)\) of the holonomy. This was generalized to Dehn fillings on a larger class of manifolds by \textit{K. P. Scannell} [Duke Math. J. 114, No.~1, 1--14 (2002; Zbl 1025.57019)]. The second result of the paper under review gives an improvement of a theorem of Scannell. For a hyperbolic \(3\)-manifold \(M\) with a torus boundary, if its parabolic cohomology \(PH^1(M,\mathfrak{so}(4,1))\) vanishes, then almost all Dehn fillings on \(M\) are locally rigid in \(\text{SO}(4,1)\). The above two results follow from the following two results proved in the paper. For a \(3\)-manifold \(M\) with torus boundary, let \(M_{p/q}\) denote the manifold obtained by Dehn filling on \(M\) with slope \(p/q\) with respect to a fixed basis. (1) Let \(M\) be a hyperbolic two-bridge knot exterior, and let \(\rho_0:\pi_1(M)\to \text{Isom} (\mathbb H^4)\) be the holonomy of the Fuchsian complete hyperbolic structure of \(M\). Let \(\{\rho_n\}\) be a sequence of representations \(\rho_n:\pi_1(M)\to \text{Isom}(\mathbb H^4)\). If \(\rho_n\) factorizes through a discrete, faithful representation of \(\pi_1(M_{p_n/q_n})\) for each \(n\) with \(p_n^2+q_n^2\to \infty\), then \(\rho_n\) converges to \(\rho_0\), up to conjugation. (2) Let \(M\) be a hyperbolic \(3\)-manifold with one cusp. Suppose its parabolic cohomology vanishes. Let \(\{\rho_n\}\) be a sequence of representations \(\rho_n:\pi_1(M)\to \text{SO}_0(4,1)\) that converges to the holonomy of \(M\). If each \(\rho_n\) comes from a discrete, faithful representation of \(\pi_1(M_{p_n/q_n})\), not conjugate to a representation in \(\text{SO}_0(3,1)\), then \(p_n/q_n\to l\) for some \(l\in \mathbb R\cup\{\infty\}\) depending only on \(M\).