Related papers: Ping-pong in Hadamard manifolds

Finite-order invariants of knots in arbitrary 3-manifolds (including non-orientable ones) are constructed and studied by methods of the topology of discriminant sets. Obstructions to the integrability of admissible weight systems to…

We study Hopf algebras via tools from geometric invariant theory. We show that all the invariants we get can be constructed using the integrals of the Hopf algebra and its dual together with the multiplication and the comultiplication, and…

Two groups have a common model geometry if they act properly and cocompactly by isometries on the same proper geodesic metric space. The Milnor-Schwarz lemma implies that groups with a common model geometry are quasi-isometric; however, the…

Let $G=F\ast_\varphi t$ be an HNN extension of a free group $F$ with two equal associated normal subgroups $H_1 = H_2$ of finite index. We prove that the word problem in $G$ is decidable in polynomial time. This result extends to the case…

We prove the following rank rigidity result for proper CAT(0) spaces with one-dimensional Tits boundaries: Let $\Gamma$ be a group acting properly discontinuously, cocompactly, and by isometries on such a space $X$. If the Tits diameter of…

There is a well known link between (maximal) polar representations and isotropy representations of symmetric spaces provided by Dadok. Moreover, the theory by Tits and Burns-Spatzier provides a link between irreducible symmetric spaces of…

We introduce the notion of a probabilistic identity of a residually finite group. We prove that a finitely generated linear group satisfies a probabilistic identity if and only if it is virtually solvable. As an application, we prove a…

We prove: (1) The group of multipliers of similitudes of a 12-dimensional anisotropic quadratic form over a field K with trivial discriminant and split Clifford invariant is generated by norms from quadratic extensions E/K such that q_E is…

We prove that for any compact manifold of dimension greater than $1$, the set of pseudo-Riemannian metrics having a trivial isometry group contains an open and dense subset of the space of metrics.

Around twenty years ago Ghys conjectured that finite subgroups of the diffeomorphism group of a compact smooth manifold M have an abelian normal subgroup of index at most a(M), where a(M) depends only on M. First we construct a family of…

We establish a global rigidity theorem for Riemannian metrics without conjugate points on three-manifolds of the form $M = \Sigma \times S^1$, where $\Sigma$ is a compact orientable surface of genus at least 2. The main result states that…

We show that a negative Einstein manifold admitting a proper isometric action of a connected unimodular Lie group with compact, possibly singular, orbit space splits isometrically as a product of a symmetric space and a compact negative…

Let W be an irreducible finitely generated Coxeter group. The geometric representation of W in GL(V) provides a discrete embedding in the orthogonal group of the Tits form (the associated bilinear form of the Coxeter group). If the Tits…

For every $d\ge 3$, we construct a noncompact smooth $d$-dimensional Riemannian manifold with strictly positive sectional curvature without isoperimetric sets for any volume below $1$. We construct a similar example also for the relative…

Let $\mathscr{C}_\mathbb{N}$ be a monoid which is generated by the partial shift $\alpha\colon n\mapsto n+1$ of the set of positive integers $\mathbb{N}$ and its inverse partial shift $\beta\colon n+1\mapsto n$. In this paper we prove that…

We use topological methods to study the maximal subgroups of the free idempotent generated semigroup on a biordered set. We use these to give an example of a free idempotent generated semigroup with maximal subgroup isomorphic to the free…

We show that any closed hyperbolic $3$-manifold $M$ has a co-final tower of covers $M_i \to M$ of degrees $n_i$ such that any subgroup of $\pi_1(M_i)$ generated by $k_i$ elements is free, where $k_i \ge n_i^C$ and $C = C(M) > 0$. Together…

Let $n\in\mathbb{N}$ and let $\Theta \subset \{1,\dots,n\}$ be a non-empty subset. We prove that if $\Theta$ contains an odd integer, then any $P_\Theta$-Anosov subgroup of ${\rm Sp}(2n,\mathbb{R})$ is virtually isomorphic to a free group…

Given an irreducible non-spherical non-affine (possibly non-proper) building $X$, we give sufficient conditions for a group $G < \Aut(X)$ to admit an infinite-dimensional space of non-trivial quasi-morphisms. The result applies to all…

We show that a locally symmetric space of noncompact type and with finite volume is quasi-isometric to the euclidean cone over a finite simplicial complex. A detailed analysis of metric properties yields a proof of a conjecture of Siegel.