Automorphism groups of positive entropy on projective threefolds

We prove two results about the natural representation of a group G of automorphisms of a normal projective threefold X on its second cohomology. We show that if X is minimal then G, modulo a normal subgroup of null entropy, is embedded as a Zariski-dense subset in a semi-simple real linear algebraic group of real rank < 3. Next, we show that X is a complex torus if the image of G is an almost abelian group of positive rank and the kernel is infinite, unless X is equivariantly non-trivially fibred.