English

Cocycle superrigidity from higher rank lattices to $\mathrm{Out}(F_N)$

Group Theory 2022-10-13 v2 Geometric Topology

Abstract

We prove a rigidity result for cocycles from higher rank lattices to Out(FN)\mathrm{Out}(F_N) and more generally to the outer automorphism group of a torsion-free hyperbolic group. More precisely, let GG be either a product of connected higher rank simple algebraic groups over local fields, or a lattice in such a product. Let GXG\curvearrowright X be an ergodic measure-preserving action on a standard probability space, and let HH be a torsion-free hyperbolic group. We prove that every Borel cocycle G×XOut(H)G\times X\to\mathrm{Out}(H) is cohomologous to a cocycle with values in a finite subgroup of Out(H)\mathrm{Out}(H). This provides a dynamical version of theorems of Farb--Kaimanovich--Masur and Bridson--Wade asserting that every morphism from GG to either the mapping class group of a finite-type surface or the outer automorphism group of a free group, has finite image. The main new geometric tool is a barycenter map that associates to every triple of points in the boundary of the (relative) free factor graph a finite set of (relative) free splittings.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2005.07477,
  title  = {Cocycle superrigidity from higher rank lattices to $\mathrm{Out}(F_N)$},
  author = {Vincent Guirardel and Camille Horbez and Jean Lécureux},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2005.07477},
  year   = {2022}
}

Comments

v2: Accepted in the Journal of Modern Dynamics. This version is an authors copy of the accepted manuscript; the version of record, in its final form, can be found at https://www.aimsciences.org/article/doi/10.3934/jmd.2022010