Deformation spaces of Kleinian surface groups are not locally connected

Abstract

For any closed surface $S$ of genus $g \geq 2$, we show that the deformation space of marked hyperbolic 3-manifolds homotopy equivalent to $S$, $AH(S \times I)$, is not locally connected. This proves a conjecture of Bromberg who recently proved that the space of Kleinian punctured torus groups is not locally connected. Playing an essential role in our proof is a new version of the filling theorem that is based on the theory of cone-manifold deformations developed by Hodgson, Kerckhoff, and Bromberg.