On the Borromean orbifolds: geometry and arithmetic

Abstract

This paper continues earlier work by the authors [see, in particular, H. M. Hilden et al., Invent. Math. 87 (1987), no. 3, 441–456; H. M. Hilden, M. T. Lozano and J. M. Montesinos, in Differential topology (Siegen, 1987), 1–13, Lecture Notes in Math., 1350, Springer, Berlin, 1988;] on universal knots, links and groups, which shows that every closed oriented 3-manifold has the structure of an arithmetic orbifold. Investigating "how rare a flower is an arithmetic orbifold in the garden of hyperbolic orbifolds", the authors produce a three-parameter family B(m,n,p), 3≤m,n,p≤∞, of them with singular set the Borromean rings and show (simultaneously providing an excellent survey on arithmetic hyperbolic groups and orbifolds) that only eleven of its members are arithmetic.