Related papers: Van Kampen's embedding obstruction for discrete gr…

We discuss rigid compact complex manifolds of Kodaira dimension 1, arising as product-quotient varieties. First, we show that there is no free rigid action on the product of $(n-1)$ elliptic curves and a curve of genus at least two. Then,…

We show that a closed, connected, oriented, Riemannian $n$-manifold, admitting a branched cover of bounded length distortion from $\mathbb R^n$, has a virtually Abelian fundamental group.

Let $p$ be an odd prime. We construct a non-abelian extension $\Gamma$ of $S^1$ by $Z/p \times Z/p$, and prove that any finite subgroup of $\Gamma$ acts freely and smoothly on $S^{2p-1} \times S^{2p-1}$. In particular, for each odd prime…

We introduce a wide class of countable groups, called properly proximal, which contains all non-amenable bi-exact groups, all non-elementary convergence groups, and all lattices in non-compact semi-simple Lie groups, but excludes all inner…

A finite nonabelian simple group does not admit a free action on a homology sphere, and the only finite simple group which acts on a homology sphere with at most 0-dimensional fixed point sets ("pseudofree action") is the alternating group…

For $n$-dimensional Riemannian manifolds $M$ with Ricci curvature bounded below by $-(n-1)$, the volume entropy is bounded above by $n-1$. If $M$ is compact, it is known that the equality holds if and only if $M$ is hyperbolic. We extend…

We prove that the minimal representation dimension of a direct product $G$ of non-abelian groups $G_1,\ldots,G_n$ is bounded below by $n+1$ and thereby answer a question of Ab\'ert. If each $G_i$ is moreover non-solvable, then this lower…

Let $G$ be a finite group and $P$ a Sylow $2$-subgroup of $G$. We obtain both asymptotic and explicit bounds for the number of odd-degree irreducible complex representations of $G$ in terms of the size of the abelianization of $P$. To do…

We generalize the notion of graph minors to all (finite) simplicial complexes. For every two simplicial complexes H and K and every nonnegative integer m, we prove that if H is a minor of K then the non vanishing of Van Kampen's obstruction…

We obtain restrictions on the topology of a closed connected manifold B that bounds a (possibly noncompact) manifold whose interior V admits a complete Riemannian metric of nonpositive sectional curvature. If G denotes the fundamental group…

The Cohn-Umans group-theoretic approach to matrix multiplication suggests embedding matrix multiplication into group algebra multiplication, and bounding $\omega$ in terms of the representation theory of the host group. This framework is…

We prove two rigidity theorems for open (complete and noncompact) $n$-manifolds $M$ with nonnegative Ricci curvature and the infimum of volume growth order $<2$. The first theorem asserts that the Riemannian universal cover of $M$ has…

No power law systolic freedom is possible for the product of mod $2$ systoles of dimension $1$ and codimension $1$. This means that any closed $n$-dimensional Riemannian manifold $M$ of bounded local geometry obeys the following systolic…

We give a positive answer, in the measurable-group-theory context, to von Neumann's problem of knowing whether a non-amenable countable discrete group contains a non-cyclic free subgroup. We also get an embedding result of the free-group…

We prove that the autonomous norm on the group of compactly supported Hamiltonian diffeomorphisms of the standard $\mathbf{R}^{2n}$ is bounded.

We prove that a group $\Gamma$ admits a discrete topological (equivalently, smooth) action on some simply-connected 3-manifold if and only if $\Gamma$ has a Cayley complex embeddable -- with certain natural restrictions -- in one of the…

By a classical result of Jordan, each finite subgroup G of a complex linear group GL_n(C) has an abelian subgroup whose index in G is bounded by a constant depending only on n. We consider the problem if this remains true for finite…

In the present paper, we prove that no infinite group acts isometrically, effectively, and properly discontinuously on a certain class of Lorentzian manifolds that are not necessarily homogeneous.

We prove a finiteness theorem for the class of complete finite volume Riemannian manifolds with pinched negative sectional curvature, fixed fundamental group, and of dimension $>2$. One of the key ingredients is that the fundamental group…

We study the properly discontinuous and isometric actions on the unit sphere of infinite dimensional Hilbert spaces and we get some new examples of Hilbert manifold with costant positive sectional curvature. We prove some necessary…