Related papers: Semisimple actions of mapping class groups on CAT(…

We study moduli spaces of flat metrics on closed Riemannian orbifolds admitting such metrics. We show that for such orbifolds $\mathcal{O}$, the Teichm\"uller space of flat metrics $\mathcal{T}_{\text{flat}}(\mathcal{O})$ serves as a…

We obtain some classification result for the mapping class groups of compact orientable surfaces in terms of measure equivalence. In particular, the mapping class groups of different closed surfaces can not be measure equivalent. Moreover,…

Let $S_g$ denote a closed, orientable surface of genus $g \geq 2$ and $\mathcal{C}(S_g)$ be the associated curve complex. The mapping class group of $S_g$, $Mod(S_g)$ acts on $\mathcal{C}(S_g)$ by isometries. Since Dehn twists about certain…

An action of a group $G$ on an Enriques surface $S$ is called Mathieu if it acts on $H^0(2K_S)$ trivially and every element of order 2, 4 has Lefschetz number 4. A finite group $G$ has a Mathieu action on some Enriques surface if and only…

Let $\Sigma$ be a surface whose interior admits a hyperbolic structure of finite volume. In this paper, we show that any infinite order mapping class acts with infinite order on the homology of some universal $k$--step nilpotent cover of…

A group action is said to be highly-transitive if it is $k$-transitive for every $k \ge 1$. The main result of this thesis is the following: Main Theorem: The fundamental group of a closed, orientable surface of genus > 1 admits a…

Every lattice H in a connected semi-simple Lie group G acts properly discontinuously by isometries on the contractible manifold G/K (K a maximal compact subgroup of G). We prove that if H acts on a contractible manifold W and if either 1)…

Let $S$ be a surface of finite type which is not a sphere with at most four punctures, a torus with at most two punctures, or a closed surface of genus two. Let $\mathcal{MF}$ be the space of equivalence classes of measured foliations of…

We show that an automorphism of an arbitrary CAT(0) cube complex either has a fixed point or preserves some combinatorial axis. It follows that when a group contains a distorted cyclic subgroup, it admits no proper action on a discrete…

If G is a group acting properly by semisimple isometries on a proper CAT(0) space X, then we build models for the classifying spaces E_{vc} and E_{fbc} under the additional assumption that the action of G has a well-behaved collection of…

Let $(M, \omega)$ be a connected, compact symplectic manifold equipped with a Hamiltonian $G$ action, where $G$ is a connected compact Lie group. Let $\phi$ be the moment map. In \cite{L}, we proved the following result for $G=S^1$ action:…

Let M be a connected compact pseudoRiemannian manifold acted upon topologically transitively and isometrically by a connected noncompact simple Lie group G. If m_0, n_0 are the dimensions of the maximal lightlike subspaces tangent to M and…

A study of symplectic actions of a finite group $G$ on smooth 4-manifolds is initiated. The central new idea is the use of $G$-equivariant Seiberg-Witten-Taubes theory in studying the structure of the fixed-point set of these symmetries.…

We construct a geometric model for the mapping class group M of a non-exceptional oriented surface of finite type and use it to show that the action of M on the compact Hausdorff space of complete geodesic laminations is topologically…

We show that the group of homotopy automorphisms of the profinite completion of the genus zero surface operad is isomorphic to the (profinite) Grothendieck-Teichm\"{u}ller group. Using a result of Drummond-Cole, we deduce that the…

Let G be a discrete group which acts properly and isometrically on a complete CAT(0)-space X. Consider an integer d with d=1 or d greater or equal to 3 such that the topological dimension of X is bounded by d. We show the existence of a…

For a compact surface $S = S_{g,n}$ with $3g + n \geq 4$, we introduce a family of unitary representations of the mapping class group Mod($S$) based on the space of measured foliations. For this family of representations, we show that none…

Let $X=S\times E \times B$ be the metric product of a symmetric space $S$ of noncompact type, a Euclidean space $E$ and a product $B$ of Euclidean buildings. Let $\Gamma$ be a discrete group acting isometrically and cocompactly on $X$. We…

Let $S_g$ be a closed, connected, and oriented smooth surface of genus $g\geq 2$. Let the mapping class group of $S_g$ be denoted by $\mathrm{Mod}(S_g)$ and the Teichm\"{u}ller space of $S_g$ by $\mathrm{Teich}(S_g)$. It is known that…

This paper contains two topics, the index of a power subgroup in the mapping class group $\mathcal{M}(0,2n)$ of a $2n$-punctured sphere and in the hyperelliptic mapping class group $\Delta(g,0)$ of an oriented closed surface of genus $g$.…