Local Rigidity of Higher Rank Homogeneous Abelian Actions: a Complete Solution via the Geometric Method

We show local and cocycle rigidity for $\R^k \times \Z^l$ partially hyperbolic translation actions on homogeneous spaces $\mc G/ \Lambda$. We consider a large class of actions whose geometric properties are more complicated than previously treated cases. It is also the first time that partially hyperbolic twisted symmetric space examples have been treated in the literature. The main new ingredient in the proof is a combination of geometric method and the theory of central extensions.