Related papers: Mapping class group dynamics and the holonomy of b…

The group action which defines the moduli problem for the deformation space of flat affine structures on the two-torus is the action of the affine group $\Aff(2)$ on $\bbR^2$. Since this action has non-compact stabiliser $\GL(2,\bbR)$, the…

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 use classical obstruction theory \`{a} la Eilenberg-Steenrod to obtain a homotopy classification of $\mathrm{Spin}(7)$-structures on compact $8$-manifolds with abelian fundamental group. As an application, we show that a compact,…

This paper is about cohomology of mapping class groups from the perspective of arithmetic groups. For a closed surface $S$ of genus $g$, the mapping class group $Mod(S)$ admits a well-known arithmetic quotient $Mod(S)\rightarrow Sp(2g, Z)$,…

Let $g, n \geq 0$ and $\Sigma = \Sigma_{g, n}$ be a connected oriented surface of genus $g$ with $n$ punctures. The $\mathrm{SL}_2$-character variety of $\Sigma$ has a rigid relative automorphism group, whose elements fix each monodromies…

We study orbit closures and stationary measures for groups of automorphisms of $p$-adic affine surfaces.

This paper determines the relationship between the geometry of retractions and the combinatorics of folded galleries for arbitrary affine buildings, and so provides a unified framework to study orbits in affine flag varieties. We introduce…

Let $\mathfrak{g}$ be an untwisted affine Lie algebra with associated Weyl group $W_a$. To any level 0 weight $\gamma$ we associate a weighted graph $\Gamma_\gamma$ that encodes the orbit of $\gamma$ under the action $W_a$. We show that the…

We study a novel type of braid groups on a closed orientable surface $\Sigma$. These are fundamental groups of certain manifolds that are hybrids between symmetric products and configuration spaces of points on $\Sigma$; a class of examples…

Making use of the extended flux homomorphism on the group of symplectomorphisms of a closed oriented surface of genus at least 2, we introduce new characteristic classes of foliated surface bundles with symplectic, equivalently…

In this paper, we study a natural class of groups that act as affine transformations of $\mathbb T^N$. We investigate whether these solvable, "abelian-by-cyclic," groups can act smoothly and nonaffinely on $\mathbb T^N$ while remaining…

In the group of polynomial automorphisms of the plane, the conjugacy class of an element is closed if and only if the element is diagonalisable. In this article, we show that this does not hold for the group of special automorphisms, giving…

We classify smooth locally free actions of the real affine group on closed orientable three-dimensional manifolds up to smooth conjugacy. As a corollary, there exists a non-homogeneous action when the manifold is the unit tangent bundle of…

We study the automorphism group of the algebraic closure of a substructure A of a pseudo-finite field F, or more generally, of a bounded PAC field F. This paper answers some of the questions of [1], and in particular that any finite group…

We classify closed curves isomorphic to the affine line in the complement of a smooth rational projective plane conic Q. Over a field of characteristic zero, we show that up to the action of the subgroup of the Cremona group of the plane…

In the first part of this paper, we propose a uniform interpretation of characteristic classes as obstructions to the reduction of the structure group and to the existence of an equivariant extension of a certain homomorphism defined a…

We develop the deformation-obstruction calculus for morphisms of complexes with a fixed lift of the codomain, to derived categories of flat nilpotent deformations of abelian categories. As an application, we give an alternative proof that…

We establish that, given $\Sigma$ a compact orientable surface, and $G$ a finitely presented one-ended group, the set of copies of $G$ in the mapping class group $\mathcal{MCG}(\Sigma)$ consisting of only pseudo-anosov elements except…

We develop the foundations of the deformation theory of compact complete affine space forms and affine crystallographic groups. Using methods from the theory of linear algebraic groups we show that these deformation spaces inherit an…

The closure of a braid in a closed orientable surface $\Sigma$ is a link in $\Sigma\times S^1$. We classify such closed surface braids up to isotopy and homeomorphism (with a small indeterminacy for isotopy of closed sphere braids),…