On the number of ends of rank one locally symmetric spaces

Abstract

Let Y be a noncompact rank one locally symmetric space of finite volume. Then Y has a finite number e(Y) > 0 of topological ends. In this paper, we show that for any natural number n, the Y with e(Y) \leq n that are arithmetic fall into finitely many commensurability classes. In particular, there is a constant c_n such that n-cusped arithmetic orbifolds do not exist in dimension greater than c_n. We make this explicit for one-cusped arithmetic hyperbolic n-orbifolds and prove that none exist for n \geq 30.

To appear in Geometry & Topology