Length muliplicities of hyperbolic 3-manifolds (Q1594887)

The real length spectrum of a manifold is defined to be the set of lengths of all closed geodesics, not necessarily simple and counted with multiplicity. The author proves that the real length spectrum of a hyperbolic 3-manifold is of unbounded multiplicity (i.e. the number of geodesics with a fixed length is unbounded). More generally, the author shows that not only the real but the complex length spectrum of a hyperbolic 3-manifold is of unbounded multiplicity. We recall that the complex length of a geodesic in a hyperbolic three-manifold is the complex number with real part the usual length of the geodesic and imaginary part its torsion. This result relies on a stronger theorem about trace classes proved in the paper. For a group \(G\), two elements \(g_1\) and \(g_2\) are said to belong to the same trace class if, for every representation of \(G\) in \(SL_2(\mathbb C)\), the image of \(g_1\) and \(g_2\) have the same trace. The number of conjugacy classes of elements of \(G\) that belong to the same trace class is called the stable multiplicity of the trace class. The main theorem of the paper states that if \(G\) is a non-elementary subgroup of \(SL_2(\mathbb C)\), then the stable multiplicity for trace classes in \(G\) is not bounded. For the proof of the theorem, the author constructs different elements of the group \(G\) in the same trace class, by means of trace identities of matrices in \(SL_2(\mathbb C)\). To show that those elements are not conjugated, the author uses maps from \(G\) to the direct products of finite simple elementary groups.