Planes in degenerate 3-manifolds

Abstract

We study totally geodesic planes in hyperbolic 3-manifolds $M$ having incompressible core and degenerate ends. We prove a Ratner-type phenomenon: a closed minimal $PSL(2,R)-$invariant subset of $M$ is either an immersed totally geodesic surface or all of $M$. We also show that for an arbitrary infinite volume hyperbolic 3-manifold $M$ without parabolics and with finitely generated fundamental group, the number of compact totally geodesic surfaces in $M$ is finite.