Related papers: Semisimple actions of mapping class groups on CAT(…
Let S be a closed, oriented surface of genus at least 2, and consider the extension 1 -> pi_1 S -> MCG(S,p) -> MCG(S) -> 1, where MCG(S) is the mapping class group of S, and MCG(S,p) is the mapping class group of S punctured at p. We prove…
In [Tohoku Math. J. 62 (2010), 45--53] the second author showed that, except for a few cases, the order $N$ of a cyclic group of self-homeomorphisms of a closed orientable topological surface $S_g$ of genus $g \geq 2$ determines the group…
In recent years, Teichm\"uller theory, which is the study of moduli spaces of marked Riemann surfaces, has come to be considered more and more from the point of view of actions of surface groups inside certain semi-simple Lie groups. In…
Let G be a connected, compact, semisimple Lie group. It is known that for a compact closed orientable surface $\Sigma$ of genus $l >1$, the order of the group $H^2(\Sigma,\pi_1(G))$ is equal to the number of connected components of the…
We use basic tools of descriptive set theory to prove that a closed set $\mathcal S$ of marked groups has $2^{\aleph_0}$ quasi-isometry classes provided every non-empty open subset of $\mathcal S$ contains at least two non-quasi-isometric…
We exhibit a variety of groups that act properly and even cocompactly on median graphs (a.k.a. one-skeletons of CAT(0) cube complexes), with quasi-isometric groups that do not admit any proper action on a median graph. This answes a…
We consider orientation-preserving actions of a finite group G on the 3-sphere S^3 (and also on Euclidean space R^3). By the geometrization of finite group actions on 3-manifolds, if such an action is smooth then it is conjugate to an…
We extend the definition of Weinstein's Action homomorphism to Hamiltonian actions with equivariant moment maps of (possibly infinite-dimensional) Lie groups on symplectic manifolds, and show that under conditions including a uniform bound…
This paper concerns rigidity of the mapping class groups. We show that any homomorphism $\phi:{\rm Mod}_g\to {\rm Mod}_h$ between mapping class groups of closed orientable surfaces with distinct genera $g>h$ is trivial if $g\geq 3$ and has…
We study conformal actions of connected nilpotent Lie groups on compact pseudo-Riemannian manifolds. We prove that if a type-(p,q) compact manifold M supports a conformal action of a connected nilpotent group H, then the degree of…
We show that the mapping class group acts properly on the space of maximal representations of the fundamental group of a closed Riemann surface into G when G = Sp(2n,R), SU(n,n), SO*(2n) or Spin(2,n).
In this paper we investigate the higher dimensional divergence functions of mapping class groups of surfaces and of CAT(0)--groups. We show that, for mapping class groups of surfaces, these functions exhibit phase transitions at the rank…
We study groups acting on CAT(0) square complexes. In particular we show if Y is a nonpositively curved (in the sense of A. D. Alexandrov) finite square complex and the vertex links of Y contain no simple loop consisting of five edges, then…
We show that the pure mapping class group is uniformly perfect for a certain class of infinite type surfaces with noncompact boundary components. We then combine this result with recent work in the remaining cases to give a complete…
In this paper, we construct for the first time, the Witten genus and elliptic genera on noncompact manifolds with a proper cocompact action by an almost connected Lie group and prove vanishing and rigidity results that generalise known…
Let $\mathrm{Mod}(S_g)$ be the mapping class group of the closed orientable surface of genus $g \geq 2$. In this article, we derive necessary and sufficient conditions under which two torsion elements in $\mathrm{Mod}(S_g)$ will have…
In this article, we associate to isometries of CAT(0) cube complexes specific subspaces, referred to as \emph{median sets}, which play a similar role as minimising sets of semisimple isometries in CAT(0) spaces. Various applications are…
In [arXiv:1912.02063], we constructed 3-dimensional Topological Quantum Field Theories (TQFTs) using not necessarily semisimple modular categories. Here, we study projective representations of mapping class groups of surfaces defined by…
Consider, in the moduli space of Riemann surfaces of a fixed genus, the subset of surfaces with non-trivial automorphisms. Of special interest are the numerous subsets of surfaces admitting an action of a given finite group, $G$, acting…
Let $S_g$ be a closed, oriented surface of genus $g$, and let $\operatorname{Mod}(S_g)$ denote its mapping class group. The Torelli group $\mathcal{I}_g$ is the subgroup of $\operatorname{Mod}(S_g)$ consisting of mapping classes that act…