Geodesic systems of tunnels in hyperbolic 3-manifolds

DOI10.2140/AGT.2014.14.925MaRDI QIDQ2441264zbMATH OpenOpenAlexFDO

Authors Stephan D. Burton, Jessica S. Purcell

Publication date 24 March 2014

Published in Algebraic \& Geometric Topology (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/1302.5469

compression body geodesic hyperbolic 3-manifold tunnel number unknotting tunnel

Kleinian groups (aspects of compact Riemann surfaces and uniformization) (30F40) General geometric structures on low-dimensional manifolds (57M50)

Abstract: It is unknown whether an unknotting tunnel is always isotopic to a geodesic in a finite volume hyperbolic 3-manifold. In this paper, we address the generalization of this problem to hyperbolic 3-manifolds admitting tunnel systems. We show that there exist finite volume hyperbolic 3-manifolds with a single cusp, with a system of at least two tunnels, such that all but one of the tunnels come arbitrarily close to self-intersecting. This gives evidence that systems of unknotting tunnels may not be isotopic to geodesics in tunnel number n manifolds. In order to show this result, we prove there is a geometrically finite hyperbolic structure on a (1;n)-compression body with a system of core tunnels such that all but one of the core tunnels self-intersect.

Review text

A system of unknotting tunnels for a 3-manifold \(M\) with torus boundary consists of \(n\) embedded arcs, with endpoints on the boundary of \(M\), such that the complement of the arcs is homeomorphic to a handlebody (of genus \(n+1\), giving a Heegaard splitting of the 3-manifold); the minimal possible \(n\) is called the \textit{tunnel number} of the 3-manifold. For hyperbolic 3-manifolds of tunnel number one it is not known, in general, whether every unknotting tunnel is isotopic to a geodesic (this is known in special cases, for example for the complements of 2-bridge knots and for hyperbolic 3-manifolds with two boundary components). The present paper offers some evidence that the analogue for hyperbolic 3-manifolds of tunnel number \(n>1\) may not be true, by showing that there exist finite-volume hyperbolic 3-manifolds with a single cusp and a system of \(n\) unknotting tunnels, \(n-1\) of which are homotopic to geodesics that come arbitrarily close to self-intersecting. In order to show this result, the authors prove that, for \(n \geq 2\), there is a geometrically finite hyperbolic structure on a \((1;n+1)\)-compression body with a system of \(n\) core tunnels, \(n-1\) of which are homotopic to self-intersecting geodesics and hence cannot be isotopic to simple geodesics (Lackenby and Purcell conjectured that for the (1;2)-compression body, core tunnels are always isotopic to geodesics); this is proved by studying Ford domains of geometrically finite structures on such compression bodies.

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