FRG: Understanding Low-Volume Hyperbolic 3-Manifolds

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The goal of this Focused Research Group is to prove the following Complexity Conjecture: that the complete low-volume hyperbolic 3-manifolds can be obtained by filling cusped hyperbolic 3-manifolds of small topological complexity. In particular, our goal is to find the low-volume closed and cusped manifolds and to explain the success of the SnapPea census in determining the low-volume manifolds. Up to the mid 1990's the best lower bounds for volume of closed orientable hyperbolic 3-manifolds appeared to be approximately 1/1000 of the likely lowest volume. Then the paper "Homotopy Hyperbolic 3-Manifolds Are Hyperbolic" improved the low-volume bounds by a factor of one hundred. Subsequently, many authors have used this result to achieve further improvements in the lower bound estimate. Now, the PI's believe they have developed a fundamental new tool (the MOM technology) which will not only find the low-volume closed and cusped hyperbolic 3-manifolds, but also explain in sharp detail why the Complexity Conjecture is correct. Our method is a satisfying mix of elementary hyperbolic geometry, 3-manifold topology, Morse Theory, and rigorous computer analysis. The implementation of our approach will involve mathematicians with expertise in different core areas of math, and with a sound knowledge of the other areas utilized in our methodology. 180 years ago, W. Bolyai, C. F. Gauss, and N. Lobachevsky started a revolution in scientific thought by creating an alternative geometry to Euclidean geometry. This non Euclidean geometry, called hyperbolic geometry, has proven to be a remarkable tool in mathematics. For example, the work of W. Thurston in the 1970's and 1980's showed that the vast majority of 3-dimensional spaces (3-manifolds) possessed geometric structures modeled on hyperbolic geometry, and that this geometric structure could be used to answer fundamental questions about the underlying 3-dimensional manifold. In fact, hyperbolic 3-manifolds have been the subject of intense scrutiny these last 40 years with striking results achieved; most recently, the proofs of the Ending Lamination and Tameness Conjectures, by Y. Minsky et al. Despite these advances and the possible spectacular resolution of the Geometrization Conjecture by G. Perelman, one of the most basic elements of the theory remains to be understood. In particular, the most natural tool for analyzing a hyperbolic 3-manifold is to use the geometry to measure its size, i.e., to compute its volume, but the behavior of the volume function remains mysterious: Thurston proved that there is a least volume hyperbolic 3-manifold, and a next lowest volume, and a next lowest, and so on, but despite 25 years of effort, none of the 3-manifolds possessing these low volumes have been conclusively identified. This proposal introduces a startling new technique--the MOM Technology--that the PIs plan to develop to find all these low-volume manifolds and to explain what properties low-volume hyperbolic manifolds must have.