arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Elisha Falbel.
In this paper, we introduce a notion of geometric surgery for flag structures, which are geometric structures locally modelled on the three-dimensional flag space under the action of ${\mathrm{PGL}}_3(\mathbb{R})$. Using such surgeries we provide examples of flag structures, of both uniformizable and non-uniformizable type.
In this paper we show that if a path structure has non-vanishing curvature at a point then it has a canonical reduction to a Z/2Z-structure at a neighbourhood of that point (in many cases it has a canonical parallelism). A simple implication of this result is that the automorphism group of a non-flat path structure is of maximal dimension three (a result by Tresse of 1896). We also classify the invariant path structures on three-dimensional Lie groups.
We study self-adjoint extensions of a second order differential operator of Sturm-Liouville type on a graph. We relate self-adjointness of the operator to the existence of non-complete trajectories of the Hamiltonian vector field defined by its principal symbol outside the vertices. We define Kirchhoff conditions at the vertices which guarantee a self-adjoint extension analogous to the case of quantum graphs. The singular vertices may be interpreted as introducing a singular potential at those points. We also establish a Weyl's law for the spectrum asymptotics.
Bounded symmetric domains carry several natural invariant metrics, for example the Carathéodory, Kobayashi or the Bergman metric. We define another natural metric, from generalized Hilbert metric defined in [FGW20], by considering the Borel embedding of the domain as an open subset of its dual compact Hermitian symmetric space and then its Harish-Chandra realization in projective spaces. We describe this construction on the four classical families of bounded symmetric domains and compute both this metric and its associated Finsler metric. We compare it to Carathéodory and Bergman metrics and show that, except for the complex hyperbolic space, those metrics differ.
We study a global invariant for path structures. The invariant is obtained as a secondary invariant from a Cartan connection on a canonical bundle associated to a path structure. It is computed in examples which are defined in terms of reductions of the path structure. In particular we give a formula for this global invariant for second order differential equations defined on a torus $T^2$.
We classify compact manifolds of dimension three equipped with a path structure and a fixed contact form (which we refer to as a strict path structure) under the hypothesis that their automorphism group is non-compact. We use a Cartan connection associated to the structure and show that its curvature is constant.
We consider here the $3$-sphere $\mathbf S^3$ seen as the boundary at infinity of the complex hyperbolic plane $\mathbf{H}^2_{\mathbf C}$. It comes equipped with a contact structure and two classes of special curves. First $\mathbf R$-circles are boundaries at infinity of totally real totally geodesic subspaces and are tangent to the contact distribution. Second, $\mathbf C$-circles, which are boundaries of complex totally geodesic subspaces and are transverse to the contact distribution. We define a quantitative notion, called slimness, that measures to what extent a continuous path in the sphere $\mathbf S^3$ is near to be an $\mathbf R$-circle. We analyze the classical foliation of the complement of an $\mathbf R$-circle by arcs of $\mathbf C$-circles. Next, we consider deformations of this situation where the $\mathbf R$-circle becomes a slim curve. We apply these concepts to the particular case where the slim curve is the limit set of a quasi-Fuchsian subgroup of $\mathrm{PU}(2,1)$. As a consequence, we describe a class of spherical CR uniformizations of certain cusped $3$-manifolds.
We complete the classification of type preserving representations of Deligne-Mostow lattices with 3-fold symmetry into PGL(3,C) started in arXiv:2003.06466. In particular, we show local rigidity for all the representations where the generators we chose are of the same type as the generators of the Deligne-Mostow lattices. We use formal computations in SAGE and MAPLE to obtain the results. The code files are available on GitHub.
A class of complex hyperbolic lattices in PU(2,1) called the Deligne-Mostow lattices has been reinterpreted by Hirzebruch and others in terms of line arrangements. They use branched covers over a suitable blow up of the complete quadrilateral arrangement of lines in projective 2-space to construct the complex hyperbolic surfaces over the orbifolds associated to the lattices. Fundamental domains for these lattices have been built by Pasquinelli. Here we show how the fundamental domains can be interpreted in terms of line arrangements as above. This parallel is then applied in two contexts. Dashyan uses Hirzebruch's construction to build infinitely many representations of 3-manifolds. Here we show that his construction can be generalised to all of the Deligne-Mostow lattices and more representations can be built. Wells shows that two of the Deligne-Mostow lattices in PU(2,1) can be seen as hybrids of lattices in PU(1,1). Here we show that he implicitly uses the line arrangement and we complete his analysis to all possible pairs of lines. In this way, we show that three more Deligne-Mostow lattices can be given as hybrids.
The Hilbert metric on convex subsets of $\mathbb R^n$ has proven a rich notion and has been extensively studied. We propose here a generalization of this metric to subset of complex projective spaces and give examples of applications to diverse fields. Basic examples include the classical Hilbert metric which coincides with the hyperbolic metric on real hyperbolic spaces as well as the complex hyperbolic metric on complex hyperbolic spaces.
In this paper we start the study of configurations of flags in closed orbits of real forms using mainly tools of GIT. As an application, using cross ratio coordinates for generic configurations, we identify boundary unipotent representations of the fundamental group of the figure eight knot complement into real forms of $\mathrm{PGL}(4,\mathbb{C})$.
We determine the explicit transformation under duality of generic configurations of four flags in $\PGL(3,\bC)$ in cross-ratio coordinates. As an application we prove invariance under duality of an invariant in the Bloch group obtained from decorated triangulations of 3-manifolds.
Let $M$ be a $3$-manifold, compact with boundary and $Γ$ its fundamental group. Consider a complex reductive algebraic group G. The character variety $X(Γ,G)$ is the GIT quotient $\mathrm{Hom}(Γ,G)//G$ of the space of morphisms $Γ\to G$ by the natural action by conjugation of $G$. In the case $G=\mathrm{SL}(2,\mathbb C)$ this space has been thoroughly studied. Following work of Thurston, as presented by Culler-Shalen, we give a lower bound for the dimension of irreducible components of $X(Γ,G)$ in terms of the Euler characteristic $χ(M)$ of $M$, the number $t$ of torus boundary components of $M$, the dimension $d$ and the rank $r$ of $G$. Indeed, under mild assumptions on an irreducible component $X_0$ of $X(Γ,G)$, we prove the inequality $$\mathrm{dim}(X_0)\geq t \cdot r - dχ(M).$$
We give a description of several representation varieties of the fundamental group of the complement of the figure eight knot in PGL(3,C) or SL(3,C). We moreover obtain an explicit parametrization of matrices generating the representation and a description of the projection of the representation variety into the character variety of the boundary torus into SL(3,C).
We show that the figure eight knot complement admits a uniformizable spherical CR structure, i.e. it occurs as the manifold at infinity of a complex hyperbolic orbifold. The uniformization is unique provided we require the peripheral subgroups to have unipotent holonomy.
We obtain a branched spherical CR structure on the complement of the figure eight knot with a given holonomy representation (called rho_2). There are essentially two boundary unipotent representations from the complement of the figure eight knot into PU(2,1), we call them rho_1 and rho_2. We make explicit some fundamental differences between these two representations. For instance, seeing the figure eight knot complement as a surface bundle over the circle, the behaviour of of the fundamental group of the fiber under the representation is a key difference between rho_1 and rho_2.
In the paper we define a "volume" for simplicial complexes of flag tetrahedra. This generalizes and unifies the classical volume of hyperbolic manifolds and the volume of CR tetrahedra complexes. We describe when this volume belongs to the Bloch group. In doing so, we recover and generalize results of Neumann-Zagier, Neumann, and Kabaya. Our approach is very related to the work of Fock and Goncharov.
We study a cross-ratio of four generic points of $S^3$ which comes from spherical CR geometry. We construct a homomorphism from a certain group generated by generic configurations of four points in $S^3$ to the pre-Bloch group $\mathcal {P}(\C)$. If $M$ is a $3$-dimensional spherical CR manifold with a CR triangulation, by our homomorphism, we get a $\mathcal {P}(\C)$-valued invariant for $M$. We show that when applying to it the Bloch-Wigner function, it is zero. Under some conditions on $M$, we show the invariant lies in the Bloch group $\mathcal B(k)$, where $k$ is the field generated by the cross-ratio. For a CR triangulation of Whitehead link complement, we show its invariant is a non-trivial torsion in $\mathcal B(k)$.