Betti numbers and injectivity radii

We give lower bounds on the maximal injectivity radius for a closed orientable hyperbolic 3-manifold M with first Betti number 2, under some additional topological hypotheses. A corollary of the main result is that if M has first Betti number 2 and contains no fibroid surface then its maximal injectivity radius exceeds 0.32798. For comparison, Andrew Przeworski showed, with no topological restrictions, that the maximal injectivity radius exceeds arcsinh(1/4) = 0.247..., while the authors showed that if M has first Betti number at least 3 then the maximal injectivity exceeds log(3)/2 = 0.549.... The proof combines a result due to Przeworski with techniques developed by the authors in the 1990s.