Weeks manifold


In mathematics, the Weeks manifold, sometimes called the Fomenko–Matveev–Weeks manifold, is a closed hyperbolic 3-manifold obtained by and Dehn surgeries on the Whitehead link. It has volume approximately equal to 0.942707… and showed that it has the smallest volume of any closed orientable hyperbolic 3-manifold. The manifold was independently discovered by as well as .

Volume

Since the Weeks manifold is an arithmetic hyperbolic 3-manifold, its volume can be computed using its arithmetic data and a formula due to Armand Borel:
where is the number field generated by satisfying and is the Dedekind zeta function of. Alternatively,
where is the polylogarithm and is the absolute value of the complex root of the cubic.

Related manifolds

The cusped hyperbolic 3-manifold obtained by Dehn surgery on the Whitehead link is the so-called sibling manifold, or sister, of the figure-eight knot complement. The figure eight knot's complement and its sibling have the smallest volume of any orientable, cusped hyperbolic 3-manifold. Thus the Weeks manifold can be obtained by hyperbolic Dehn surgery on one of the two smallest orientable cusped hyperbolic 3-manifolds.