Octahedral Noncompact Hyperbolic Space Forms With Finite Volume


Marica Šarac


Following Poincare's geometric method, we construct two new nonorientable noncompact hyperbolic space forms by the regular octahedron in Fig 1. The construction is motivated by Thurston's example [6], discussed also by Apansov [1] in details. Our new space forms will be denoted by $$ \tilde D_1= H^3/G_1\quad\text{and}\quad \tilde D_2= H^3/G_2, $$ where $\tilde D_1$ and $\tilde D_2$ are obtained by pairing faces of $D$ via isometries of groups $G_1$ and $G_2$, respectively, acting discontinuously and freely on the hyperbolic 3-space $H^3$ (Fig. 2, Fig. 3). These groups are defined by generators and relations in Sect. 3. The complete computer classification of possible space forms by our octahedron will be discussed in [4], where it turns out that our two space forms are isometric, i.e. $G_1$ and $G_2$ are conjugated by an isometry $\varphi$ of $H^3$, i.e. $G_2=\varphi^{-1}G_1\varphi$, $$ \align G_1&=(g_1,g_2,\bar g_1,\bar g_2 \raise2pt\vbox{\hrule width.5cm} g_1\bar g_1^{-1}g_2\bar g_2^{-1}=g_1g_1g_2g_2=\bar g_1\bar g_1\bar g_2\bar g_2=1),\\ G_2&=(t_1,t_2,\bar g_1,\bar g_2 \raise2pt\vbox{\hrule width.5cm} t_1\bar g_1^{-1}t_2^{-1}\bar g_2=t_1t_2t_1^{-1}t_2^{-1}=\bar g_1\bar g_1\bar g_2\bar g_2=1). \endalign $$