On canonical triangulations of once-punctured torus bundles and two-bridge link complements

We prove the hyperbolization theorem for punctured torus bundles and two-bridge link complements by decomposing them into ideal tetrahedra which are then given hyperbolic structures, following Rivin's volume maximization principle.Comment: This is the version published by Geometry & Topology on 16 September 2006. Appendix by David Fute

Angled decompositions of arborescent link complements

This paper describes a way to subdivide a 3-manifold into angled blocks, namely polyhedral pieces that need not be simply connected. When the individual blocks carry dihedral angles that fit together in a consistent fashion, we prove that a manifold constructed from these blocks must be hyperbolic. The main application is a new proof of a classical, unpublished theorem of Bonahon and Siebenmann: that all arborescent links, except for three simple families of exceptions, have hyperbolic complements.Comment: 42 pages, 23 figures. Slightly expanded exposition and reference

One brick at a time: a survey of inductive constructions in rigidity theory

We present a survey of results concerning the use of inductive constructions to study the rigidity of frameworks. By inductive constructions we mean simple graph moves which can be shown to preserve the rigidity of the corresponding framework. We describe a number of cases in which characterisations of rigidity were proved by inductive constructions. That is, by identifying recursive operations that preserved rigidity and proving that these operations were sufficient to generate all such frameworks. We also outline the use of inductive constructions in some recent areas of particularly active interest, namely symmetric and periodic frameworks, frameworks on surfaces, and body-bar frameworks. We summarize the key outstanding open problems related to inductions.Comment: 24 pages, 12 figures, final versio

Topological Phases: An Expedition off Lattice

Motivated by the goal to give the simplest possible microscopic foundation for a broad class of topological phases, we study quantum mechanical lattice models where the topology of the lattice is one of the dynamical variables. However, a fluctuating geometry can remove the separation between the system size and the range of local interactions, which is important for topological protection and ultimately the stability of a topological phase. In particular, it can open the door to a pathology, which has been studied in the context of quantum gravity and goes by the name of `baby universe', Here we discuss three distinct approaches to suppressing these pathological fluctuations. We complement this discussion by applying Cheeger's theory relating the geometry of manifolds to their vibrational modes to study the spectra of Hamiltonians. In particular, we present a detailed study of the statistical properties of loop gas and string net models on fluctuating lattices, both analytically and numerically.Comment: 38 pages, 22 figure

Cusp areas of Farey manifolds and applications to knot theory

This paper gives the first explicit, two-sided estimates on the cusp area of once-punctured torus bundles, 4-punctured sphere bundles, and 2-bridge link complements. The input for these estimates is purely combinatorial data coming from the Farey tesselation of the hyperbolic plane. The bounds on cusp area lead to explicit bounds on the volume of Dehn fillings of these manifolds, for example sharp bounds on volumes of hyperbolic closed 3-braids in terms of the Schreier normal form of the associated braid word. Finally, these results are applied to derive relations between the Jones polynomial and the volume of hyperbolic knots, and to disprove a related conjecture.Comment: 44 pages, 11 figures. Version 4 contains revisions and corrections (most notably, in Sections 5 and 6) that incorporate referee comments. To appear in the International Mathematics Research Notices

Explicit angle structures for veering triangulations

Agol recently introduced the notion of a veering triangulation, and showed that such triangulations naturally arise as layered triangulations of fibered hyperbolic 3-manifolds. We prove, by a constructive argument, that every veering triangulation admits positive angle structures, recovering a result of Hodgson, Rubinstein, Segerman, and Tillmann. Our construction leads to explicit lower bounds on the smallest angle in this positive angle structure, and to information about angled holonomy of the boundary tori.Comment: 23 pages, 8 figures. v2 contains a cleaner definition of holonomy in Section 6.1, and minor expository changes throughout. To appear in Algebraic & Geometric Topolog