The lowest volume 3-orbifolds with high torsion

Abstract

For each natural number n >= 4, we determine the unique lowest volume hyperbolic 3-orbifold whose torsion orders are bounded below by n. This lowest volume orbifold has base space the 3-sphere and singular locus the figure-8 knot, marked n. We apply this result to give sharp lower bounds on the volume of a hyperbolic manifold in terms of the order of elements in its symmetry group.