Related papers: Non-faithful representations of surface groups int…

In this note, we give an explicit counterexample to the simple loop conjecture for representations of surface groups into PSL(2,R). Specifically, we show that for any surface with negative Euler characteristic and genus at least 1, there…

There are noninjective maps from surface groups to limit groups that don't kill any simple closed curves. As a corollary, there are noninjective all-loxodromic representations of surface groups to SL(2,C) that don't kill any simple closed…

We show that the Simple Loop Conjecture holds for any representation $\rho\colon\pi_1(S)\longrightarrow \text{PSL}(2,\,\mathbb R)$ that is discrete but not faithful. That is, we show the existence of a simple closed curve in the kernel of…

We give results on when a finitely generated group has only indiscrete embeddings in SL(2,C), with particular reference to 3-manifold groups. For instance if we glue two copies of the figure 8 knot along its torus boundary then the…

Cooper-Manning and Louder gave examples of maps of surface groups to PSL(2,C) which are not injective, but are incompressible (i.e. no simple loop is in the kernel). We construct more examples with very simple certificates for their…

For every $g\ge 2$ and $n\ge4$, we provide an $n-$manifold $M$ and a continuous $2-$sided map $f\colon S\longrightarrow M$, where $S$ is a closed genus $g$ surface, such that no simple loop is contained in $\text{ker}(\,f_*\,)$. This…

The fundamental group of every surface that is not the projective plane or Klein bottle has a representation to a torsion-free group of upper-triangular matrices in SL(2,R) with no simple loop (i.e. a nontrivial element representing a…

We show the set of faithful representations of a closed orientable hyperbolic surface group is dense in both irreducible components of the PSL(2,K) representation variety, where K is the field of real or complex numbers, answering a…

We prove two results on some special generators of finite simple groups and use them to prove that every non-abelian finite simple group $S$ admits a non-congruence presentation (as conjectured in [CLT24]), and that if $S$ has a non-trivial…

We introduce and study \emph{simple Anosov representations} of closed hyperbolic surface groups, analogous to Minsky's \emph{primitive stable representations} of free groups. We prove that the set of simple Anosov representations into…

A surface group representation into a Lie group is called totally elliptic if every simple closed curve on the surface is mapped to an elliptic element of the target group. In this note, we characterize all totally elliptic surface group…

In this short note we prove that the finite non-abelian simple groups PSL(2,q), where q = 5,7, are determined by their posets of classes of isomorphic subgroups. In particular, this disproves the conjecture in the end of [5].

We consider conformal actions of simple Lie groups on compact Lorentzian manifolds. Mainly motivated by the Lorentzian version of a conjecture of Lichnerowicz, we establish the alternative: Either the group acts isometrically for some…

In math.SG/0303255, we discussed the connected components of the space of surface group representations for any compact connected semisimple Lie group and any closed compact (orientable or nonorientable) surface. In this sequel, we…

The simple loop conjecture for 3-manifolds states that every 2-sided immersion of a closed surface into a 3-manifold is either injective on fundamental groups or admits a compression. This can be viewed as a generalization of the Loop…

We show that an element w of a free group F on n generators defines a surjective word map of PSL(2,C)^n onto PSL(2,C) unless w belongs to the second derived subgroup of F. We also describe certain words maps that are surjective on SL(2,C) x…

In this paper we construct new Beauville surfaces with group either $\PSL(2,p^e)$, or belonging to some other families of finite simple groups of Lie type of low Lie rank, or an alternating group, or a symmetric group, proving a conjecture…

In this paper we provide a classification of fundamental group elements representing simple closed curves on the punctured Klein bottle, Similar to the Birman-Series classification of curves on the punctured torus[1]. In the process, an…

A consequence of Rapinchuk et al. is that for $S$ a closed surface of genus $g\geq 2$, the set of Hitchin representations of $\pi_1(S)$ with image in $\mathrm{SL}(n,\mathbb{Q})$ is dense in the Hitchin component. We give a dynamical proof…

These notes present a quick introduction to the q-deformations of semisimple Lie groups from the point of view of unitary representation theory. In order to remain concrete, we concentrate entirely on the case of the lie algebra…