On deformation spaces of nonuniform hyperbolic lattices

Let $\Gamma$ be a nonuniform lattice acting on real hyperbolic n-space. We show that in dimension greater than or equal to 4, the volume of a representation is constant on each connected component of the representation variety of $\Gamma$ in SO(n,1). Furthermore, in dimensions 2 and 3, there is a semialgebraic subset of the representation variety such that the volume of a representation is constant on connected components of the semialgebraic subset. Our approach gives a new proof of the local rigidity theorem for nonuniform hyperbolic lattices and the analogue of Soma's theorem, which shows that the number of orientable hyperbolic manifolds dominated by a closed, connected, orientable 3-manifold is finite, for noncompact 3-manifolds.