Compact anti-de Sitter 3-manifolds and folded hyperbolic structures on surfaces

Abstract

We prove that any nonabelian, non-Fuchsian representation of a surface group into PSL(2,R) is the holonomy of a folded hyperbolic structure on the surface. Using similar ideas, we establish that any non-Fuchsian representation rho of a surface group into PSL(2,R) is strictly dominated by some Fuchsian representation j, in the sense that the hyperbolic translation lengths for j are uniformly larger than for rho; conversely, any Fuchsian representation j strictly dominates some non-Fuchsian representation rho, whose Euler class can be prescribed. This has applications to compact anti-de Sitter 3-manifolds.