We prove the existence of an automorphism-invariant coupling for the wired and the free uniform spanning forests on Cayley graphs of finitely generated residually amenable groups.

This paper is being withdrawn because an error was discovered in lemma 4.3. Although the rest of the paper appears to be correct, this error invalidates the proof of theorem 3.1 and theorem 3.3.

We prove the following: 1. Let epsilon>0 and let S_1,S_2 be two closed hyperbolic surfaces. Then there exists locally-isometric covers S'_i of S_i (for i=1,2) such that there is a (1+\epsilon) bi-Lipschitz homeomorphism between S'_1 and S'_2 and both covers S'_i have bounded injectivity radius. 2. Let M be a closed hyperbolic 3-manifold. Then there exists a map j: S -> M where S is a surface of bounded injectivity radius and j is a pi_1-injective local isometry onto its image.

We prove that given a fixed radius $r$, the set of isometry-invariant probability measures supported on ``periodic'' radius $r$-circle packings of the hyperbolic plane is dense in the space of all isometry-invariant probability measures on the space of radius $r$-circle packings. By a periodic packing, we mean one with cofinite symmetry group. As a corollary, we prove the maximum density achieved by isometry-invariant probability measures on a space of radius $r$-packings of the hyperbolic plane is the supremum of densities of periodic packings. We also show that the maximum density function varies continuously with radius.

In previous work a probabilistic approach to controlling difficulties of density in hyperbolic space led to a workable notion of optimal density for packings of bodies. In this paper we extend an ergodic theorem of Nevo to provide an appropriate definition of optimal dense packings. Examples are given to illustrate various aspects of the density problem, in particular the shift in emphasis from the analysis of individual packings to spaces of packings.