New hyperbolic 4-manifolds of low volume

We prove that there are at least 2 commensurability classes of minimal-volume hyperbolic 4-manifolds. Moreover, by applying a well-known technique due to Gromov and Piatetski-Shapiro, we build the smallest known non-arithmetic hyperbolic 4-manifold.Comment: 21 pages, 6 figures. Added the Coxeter diagrams of the commensurability classes of the manifolds. New and better proof of Lemma 2.2. Modified statements and proofs of the main theorems: now there are two commensurabilty classes of minimal volume manifolds. Typos correcte

Geometric transition from hyperbolic to Anti-de Sitter structures in dimension four

We provide the first examples of geometric transition from hyperbolic to Anti-de Sitter structures in dimension four, in a fashion similar to Danciger's three-dimensional examples. The main ingredient is a deformation of hyperbolic 4-polytopes, discovered by Kerckhoff and Storm, eventually collapsing to a 3-dimensional ideal cuboctahedron. We show the existence of a similar family of collapsing Anti-de Sitter polytopes, and join the two deformations by means of an opportune half-pipe orbifold structure. The desired examples of geometric transition are then obtained by gluing copies of the polytope.Comment: 50 pages, 27 figures. Part 3 of the previous version has been removed and will be part of a new preprint to appear soo

Hyperbolic Dehn filling in dimension four

We introduce and study some deformations of complete finite-volume hyperbolic four-manifolds that may be interpreted as four-dimensional analogues of Thurston's hyperbolic Dehn filling. We construct in particular an analytic path of complete, finite-volume cone four-manifolds $M_t$ that interpolates between two hyperbolic four-manifolds $M_0$ and $M_1$ with the same volume $\frac {8}3\pi^2$. The deformation looks like the familiar hyperbolic Dehn filling paths that occur in dimension three, where the cone angle of a core simple closed geodesic varies monotonically from $0$ to $2\pi$. Here, the singularity of $M_t$ is an immersed geodesic surface whose cone angles also vary monotonically from $0$ to $2\pi$. When a cone angle tends to $0$ a small core surface (a torus or Klein bottle) is drilled producing a new cusp. We show that various instances of hyperbolic Dehn fillings may arise, including one case where a degeneration occurs when the cone angles tend to $2\pi$, like in the famous figure-eight knot complement example. The construction makes an essential use of a family of four-dimensional deforming hyperbolic polytopes recently discovered by Kerckhoff and Storm.Comment: 60 pages, 23 figures. Final versio

Counting cusped hyperbolic 3-manifolds that bound geometrically

We show that the number of isometry classes of cusped hyperbolic $3$-manifolds that bound geometrically grows at least super-exponentially with their volume, both in the arithmetic and non-arithmetic settings.Comment: 17 pages, 7 figures; to appear in Transactions AM

Compact hyperbolic manifolds without spin structures

We exhibit the first examples of compact orientable hyperbolic manifolds that do not have any spin structure. We show that such manifolds exist in all dimensions $n \geq 4$. The core of the argument is the construction of a compact orientable hyperbolic $4$-manifold $M$ that contains a surface $S$ of genus $3$ with self intersection $1$. The $4$-manifold $M$ has an odd intersection form and is hence not spin. It is built by carefully assembling some right angled $120$-cells along a pattern inspired by the minimum trisection of $\mathbb{C}\mathbb{P}^2$. The manifold $M$ is also the first example of a compact orientable hyperbolic $4$-manifold satisfying any of these conditions: 1) $H_2(M,\mathbb{Z})$ is not generated by geodesically immersed surfaces. 2) There is a covering $\tilde{M}$ that is a non-trivial bundle over a compact surface.Comment: 23 pages, 16 figure