Finiteness of veering triangulations

Abstract

We show that a finite volume cusped hyperbolic 3-manifold admits at most finitely many veering triangulations, and in fact this number is bounded above by the number of Giroux torsion free tight contact structures. This resolves Kirby problem K3 3.21e. More generally, for any 3-manifold $M$ and any link $L$, we show finiteness for the family of pseudo-Anosov flows which admits a \emph{strictly positive Birkhoff section relative to $L$}. Combined with work of Li, this implies that a fixed closed $3$-manifold admits at most finitely many pseudo-Anosov flows without perfect fits. This resolves Kirby problem K3 3.21d.

v2: rewrote the introduction and some of the text to make the main theorem appear in full generality