For a complete, finite volume real hyperbolic n-manifold M, we investigate the map between homology of the cusps of M and the homology of M. Our main result provides a proof of a result required in a recent paper of Frigerio, Lafont and Sisto.

In this paper we investigate totally geodesic surfaces in hyperbolic 3-manifolds. In particular we show that if M is a compact arithmetic hyperbolic 3-manifold containing an immersion of a totally geodesic surface then it contains infinitely many commensurability classes of such surfaces. In addition we show for these M that the Chern-Simons invariant is rational.

We also show, that unlike the figure-eight knot complement in S3, many knot complements in S3 do not contain an immersion of a closed totally geodesic surface.

Let M be a complete hyperbolic n-manifold of finite volume. By a systole of M we mean a shortest closed geodesic in M. By the systole length of M we mean the length of a systole. We denote this by sl (M). In the case when M is closed, the systole length is simply twice the injectivity radius of M. In the presence of cusps, injectivity radius becomes arbitrarily small and it is for this reason we use the language of ‘systole length’.

In the context of hyperbolic surfaces of finite volume, much work has been done on systoles; we refer the reader to [2, 10–12] for some results. In dimension 3, little seems known about systoles. The main result in this paper is the following (see below for definitions):

Chinburg and Reid have recently constructed examples of hyperbolic 3-manifolds in which every closed geodesic is simple. These examples are constructed in a highly non-generic way and it is of interest to understand in the general case the geometry of and structure of the set of closed geodesics in hyperbolic 3-manifolds. For hyperbolic 3-manifolds which contain immersed totally geodesic surfaces there are always non-simple closed geodesics. Here we construct examples of manifolds with non-simple closed geodesics and no totally geodesic surfaces.

Examples of hyperbolic knots in S3 are given such that their complements contain quasi-Fuchsian non-Fuchsian surfaces. In particular, this proves that there are hyperbolic knots that are not toroidally alternating.

Let Γ be a Kleinian group of finite covolume and denote by Γ(2) the subgroup generated by {γ2:γ ∈ Γ}. In [9] the trace field of Γ(2) was shown to be an invariant of the commensurability class of Γ. In [8] this field was termed the invariant trace field of Γ and further properties of this field were studied. Following the notation of [8] we denote the invariant trace field of Γ by k(Γ).