Virtual Homological Torsion of Closed Hyperbolic 3-manifolds

Hongbin Sun

Published 2013-09-05, updated 2014-06-05Version 4

In this paper, we will use Kahn-Markovic's almost totally geodesic surfaces to construct certain $\pi_1$-injective 2-complexes in closed hyperbolic 3-manifolds. Such 2-complexes are locally almost totally geodesic except along a 1-dimensional subcomplex. Using Agol and Wise's result that fundamental groups of hyperbolic 3-manifolds are LERF and quasi-convex subgroups are virtual retract, we will show that closed hyperbolic 3-manifolds virtually contain any prescribed homological torsion: For any finite abelian group $A$, and any closed hyperbolic 3-manifold $M$, there exists a finite cover $N$ of $M$, such that $A$ is a direct summand of $Tor(H_1(N;\mathbb{Z}))$.