Related papers: Dynamical and cohomological obstructions to extend…

In this paper we consider the action of the mapping class group of a surface on the space of homomorphisms from the fundamental group of a surface into PSL(2,R). Goldman conjectured that when the surface is closed and of genus bigger than…

A free action of a finite group on an odd-dimensional sphere is said to be almost linear if the action restricted to each cyclic or 2-hyperelementary subgroup is conjugate to a free linear action. We begin this survey paper by reviewing the…

We establish obstructions for groups to act by homeomorphisms on dendrites. For instance, lattices in higher rank simple Lie groups will always fix a point or a pair. The same holds for irreducible lattices in products of connected groups.…

Let $f:M\to \mathbb{R}$ be a Morse function on a smooth closed surface, $V$ be a connected component of some critical level of $f$, and $\mathcal{E}_V$ be its atom. Let also $\mathcal{S}(f)$ be a stabilizer of the function $f$ under the…

Denote by $\DC(M)_0$ the identity component of the group of compactly supported $C^\infty$ diffeomorphisms of a connected $C^\infty$ manifold $M$, and by $\HR$ the group of the homeomorphisms of $\R$. We show that if $M$ is a closed…

A torus manifold is a closed smooth manifold of dimension $2n$ having an effective smooth $T^n = (S^1)^n$-action with non-empty fixed points. Petrie \cite{petrie:1973} has shown that any homotopy equivalence between a complex projective…

Local action principles on a manifold $\M$ are invariant (if at all) only under diffeomorphisms that preserve the boundary of $\M$. Suppose, however, that we wish to study only part of a system described by such a principle; namely, the…

This article announces joint work with Frank Connolly and Jim Davis. We generalize our classification of pseudo-free involutions on the n-torus, by studying the action of the associated infinite group with torsion in the universal cover.…

This is a slightly altered version of the authors thesis from 2014. In the first main part we show that the quotient space of a compact, simply connected and nonnegatively curved Riemannian 4-manifold by an effective, isometric…

If a closed 3-manifold M supports a closed, nonsingular, irrational 1-form which linearly deforms into contact forms, then M supports a K-contact form. On the 3-torus, a closed nonsingular 1-form deforms linearly into contact forms if and…

We consider an effective action of a compact (n-1)-torus on a smooth 2n-manifold with isolated fixed points. We prove that under certain conditions the orbit space is a closed topological manifold. In particular, this holds for certain…

As was recently pointed out by McMullen and Taubes [Math. Res. Lett. 6 (1999) 681-696], there are 4-manifolds for which the diffeomorphism group does not act transitively on the deformation classes of orientation-compatible symplectic…

We study orbifold group actions on locally defined fields upon M-theory branes in a three-form C-fields background. We derive some constraints from the consistency of the orbifold group actions. We show the possibility of the existence of…

In this article, we describe all the group morphisms from the group of orientation-preserving homeomorphisms of the circle to the group of homeomorphisms of the annulus or of the torus.

We consider endomorphism actions of arbitrary discrete semigroups on a connected metrizable topological group G. We give necessary and sufficient conditions for expansiveness of such actions when G is a Lie group or a compact…

A survey of finite group actions on symplectic 4-manifolds is given with a special emphasis on results and questions concerning smooth or symplectic classification of group actions, group actions and exotic smooth structures, and…

This paper contains some more results on the topology of a nondegenerate action of $\mathbb{R}^n$ on a compact connected $n$-manifold $M$ when the action is totally hyperbolic (i.e. its toric degree is zero). We study the…

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…

For a manifold M we define a structure on the group action of Diff(M) on the smooth functions on M which reduces to the usual differential geometry upon differentiation at zero along the one-parameter groups of Diff(M). This ``integrated…

We show that any effective isometric torus action of maximal rank on a compact Riemannian manifold with positive (sectional) curvature and maximal symmetry rank, that is, on a positively curved sphere, lens space, complex or real projective…