English

Peripheral subgroups of Kleinian groups

Geometric Topology 2025-12-24 v2 Complex Variables Group Theory

Abstract

The conformal boundary of a hyperbolic 33-manifold MM is a union of Riemann surfaces. If any of these Riemann surfaces has a nontrivial Teichm\"uller space, then the hyperbolic metric of MM can be deformed quasi-isometrically. These deformations correspond to small pertubations in the matrices of the holonomy group π1(M)PSL(2,C) \pi_1(M) \subset \mathsf{PSL}(2,\mathbb{C}) , which together give an island of discrete representations around the identity map in X=Hom(π1(M),PSL(2,C)) X=\operatorname{Hom}(\pi_1(M), \mathsf{PSL}(2,\mathbb{C})) . Determining the extent of this island is a hard problem. If MM is geometrically finite and its convex core boundary is pleated only along simple closed curves, then we cut up its conformal boundary in a way governed by the pleating combinatorics to produce a fundamental domain for π1(M) \pi_1(M) that is combinatorially stable under small deformations, even those which change the pleating structure. We give a computable region in XX, cut out by polynomial inequalities over R\mathbb{R}, within which this fundamental domain is valid: all the groups in the region have peripheral structures that look `coarsely similar', in that they come from real-algebraically deforming a fixed conformal polygon and its side-pairings. The union of all these regions for different pleating laminations gives a countable cover, with sets of controlled topology, of the entire quasi-isometric deformation space of π1(M) \pi_1(M) -- which is known to be topologically wild.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2508.00297,
  title  = {Peripheral subgroups of Kleinian groups},
  author = {Alex Elzenaar},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2508.00297},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

39 pages, 10 figures. v2: updated introduction; corrected errors in section 3 on semi-algebraic descriptions of Teichm\"uller space; added more detail to some proofs. Numbering has changed, correspondence welcome

R2 v1 2026-07-01T04:28:50.772Z