Volume Stability for Hyperbolic Manifolds and Applications to General Relativity

Abstract

We prove a sharp volume-stability theorem for closed hyperbolic three-manifolds. Let \((M,h)\) be closed hyperbolic with \(\operatorname{Ric}_h=-2h\), and let \(g_i\) be smooth metrics on \(M\) satisfying $R(g_i)\geq -6, \operatorname{Vol}_{g_i}(M)\longrightarrow \operatorname{Vol}_h(M)$. After passing to a subsequence, there exist \(Z_i\subset M\), smooth domains \(K_i\subset M\), and diffeomorphisms $ψ_i:K_i\longrightarrow M\setminus Z_i $ such that $\operatorname{Vol}_{g_i}(Z_i)\longrightarrow0, \operatorname{Vol}_h(M\setminus K_i)\longrightarrow0, $ and $ \|ψ_i^*g_i-h\|_{C^0(K_i,h)}\longrightarrow0. $ Thus near-equality in the sharp hyperbolic volume bound forces tensorial \(C^0\)-convergence to the hyperbolic metric outside regions of vanishing volume. As an application, we establish stability of the Fischer--Moncrief reduced Hamiltonian at the Lorentz-cone ground state: after CMC normalization, near-minimizing compact vacuum data in the hyperbolic topological class converge, modulo sets of vanishing volume, to the hyperbolic Lorentz-cone geometry in tensorial \(C^0\). This provides a rigorous volume-dominance formulation of the Fischer--Moncrief asymptotic picture.