On quotient orbifolds of hyperbolic 3-manifolds of genus two

Abstract

We analyze the orbifolds that can be obtained as quotients of hyperbolic 3-manifolds admitting a Heegaard splitting of genus two by their orientation preserving isometry groups. The genus two hyperbolic 3-manifolds are exactly the hyperbolic 2-fold branched coverings of 3-bridge links. If the 3-bridge link is a knot, we prove that the underlying topological space of the quotient orbifold is either the 3-sphere or a lens space and we describe the combinatorial setting of the singular set for each possible isometry group. In the case of 3-bridge links with two or three components, the situation is more complicated and we show that the underlying topological space is the 3-sphere, a lens space or a prism manifold. Finally we present a infinite family of hyperbolic 3-manifolds that are simultaneously the 2-fold branched covering of two inequivalent knot, one with bridge number three and the other one with bridge number strictly greater than three.