Related papers: The first Johnson subgroups act ergodically on SU_…

We study the action of the mapping class group Mod(S) on the boundary dQ of quasifuchsian space Q. Among other results, Mod(S) is shown to be topologically transitive on the subset C in dQ of manifolds without a conformally compact end. We…

We discuss recurrence and ergodicity properties of random walks and associated skew products for large classes of locally compact groups and homogeneous spaces. In particular we show that a closed subgroup of a product of finitely many…

Let $S_g$ be the closed orientable surface of genus $g \geq 2$, and let $\mathrm{Mod}(S_g)$ be the mapping class group of $S_g$. Let $A_n$ denote the alternating group on $n$ letters. We derive necessary and sufficient conditions under…

It is proved that if S^6 possesses an integrable complex structure, then there exists a 1-dimensional family of pairwise different exotic complex structures on P_3(C). This follows immediately from the main result of the paper: S^6 is not…

In this paper, considering the geometric equivalence for algebras of a variety $_{S}A$ of S-acts over a monoid S, we obtain representation theorems describing all types of the equivalence classes of geometrically equivalent S-acts of…

An SL_n-character of a group G is the trace of an SL_n-representation of G. We show that all algebraic relations between SL_n-characters of G can be visualized as relations between graphs (resembling Feynman diagrams) in any topological…

We study the relative SU(2,1)-character varieties of the one-holed torus, and the action of the mapping class group on them. We use an explicit description of the character variety of the free group of rank two in SU(2,1) in terms of…

We show that joinings of higher rank torus actions on S-arithmetic quotients of semi-simple or perfect algebraic groups must be algebraic.

Proving a conjecture of Dennis Johnson, we show that the Torelli subgroup of the mapping class group has a finite generating set whose size grows cubically with respect to the genus of the surface. Our main tool is a new space called the…

Let $G$ be a group with socle a simple group of Lie type defined over the finite field with $q$ elements where $q$ is a power of the prime $p$. Suppose that $G$ acts transitively upon the lines of a linear space $\mathcal{S}$. We show that…

We prove that the group of birational automorphisms of a geometrically irreducible algebraic surface over a finite field is Jordan. We show that the analogous statement fails in higher dimensions. Finally, we prove that groups of birational…

On a closed symplectic surface Sigma of genus two or more, we give a new construction of an extended flux map (a crossed homomorphism from the symplectomorphism group Symp(Sigma) to the cohomology group H^1(Sigma;R) that extends the flux…

In this paper, we study the ergodicity of a one-parameter diagonalizable subgroup of a connected semisimple real algebraic group $G$ acting on a homogeneous space or, more generally, a homogeneous-like space, equipped with a…

The unique irreducible representation of $\SL_2(\R)$ on $\R^n$ induces an action, called the \textit{linear action}, of $\SL_2(\Z)$ on the torus $\T^n$ for every $n\geq 2$. For $n$ odd, it factors through $\PSL_2(\Z)$, so we denote by $G_n$…

There are some similarities between cohomology of SU(2)-representation varieties of the fundamental group of some link complements and the Khovanov homology of the links. We start here a program to explain a possible source of these…

Let $\Gamma_g$ be the fundamental group of a closed orientable surface of genus $g\geqslant 2$. The outer automorphism group $\mathrm{Out}(\Gamma_g)$ naturally acts on the character variety $\mathcal{X}(\Gamma_g,G)$ for any Lie group $G$.…

The moduli space $\overline{\mathcal{M}}_{0,n}$ of $n$ pointed stable curves of genus $0$ admits an action of the symmetric group $S_n$ by permuting the marked points. We provide a closed formula for the character of the $S_n$-action on the…

The Johnson-Morita theory is an algebraic approach to the mapping class group of a surface, in which one considers its action on the successive nilpotent quotients of the fundamental group of the surface. In this paper, we develop an…

Let $\mathrm{Mod}(S_g)$ be the mapping class group of the closed orientable surface $S_g$ of genus $g\geq 2$. In this paper, we derive necessary and sufficient conditions under which two torsion elements in $\mathrm{Mod}(S_g)$ will have…

Suppose that a group $G$ has socle $L$ a simple large-rank classical group. Suppose furthermore that $G$ acts transitively on the set of lines of a linear space $\mathcal{S}$. We prove that, provided $L$ has dimension at least 25, then $G$…