arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Fanny Kassel.
We establish several characterizations of Anosov representations of word hyperbolic groups into real reductive Lie groups, in terms of a Cartan projection or Lyapunov projection of the Lie group. Using a properness criterion of Benoist and Kobayashi, we derive applications to proper actions on homogeneous spaces of reductive groups.
We construct compactifications of Riemannian locally symmetric spaces arising as quotients by Anosov representations. These compactifications are modeled on generalized Satake compactifications and, in certain cases, on maximal Satake compactifications. We deduce that these Riemannian locally symmetric spaces are topologically tame, i.e. homeomorphic to the interior of a compact manifold with boundary. We also construct domains of discontinuity (not necessarily with a compact quotient) in a much more general setting.
We describe smooth compactifications of certain families of reductive homogeneous spaces such as group manifolds for classical Lie groups, or pseudo-Riemannian analogues of real hyperbolic spaces and their complex and quaternionic counterparts. We deduce compactifications of Clifford-Klein forms of these homogeneous spaces, namely quotients by discrete groups Gamma acting properly discontinuously, in the case that Gamma is word hyperbolic and acts via an Anosov representation. In particular, these Clifford-Klein forms are topologically tame.
Crooked planes are piecewise linear surfaces that were introduced by Drumm in the early 1990s to construct fundamental domains for properly discontinuous actions of free groups on Minkowski 3-space. In a previous paper, we introduced analogues of these surfaces, called AdS crooked planes, in the 3-dimensional anti-de Sitter space AdS^3; we showed that many properly discontinuous actions of free groups on AdS^3 admit fundamental domains bounded by AdS crooked planes. Here we study further the question of which proper actions on AdS^3 admit crooked fundamental domains, and show that some do not, in contrast to the Minkowski setting.
We study strip deformations of convex cocompact hyperbolic surfaces, defined by inserting hyperbolic strips along a collection of disjoint geodesic arcs properly embedded in the surface. We prove that any deformation of the surface that uniformly lengthens all closed geodesics can be realized as a strip deformation, in an essentially unique way. The infinitesimal version of this result gives a parameterization, by the arc complex, of the moduli space of Margulis spacetimes with fixed convex cocompact linear holonomy. As an application, we provide a new proof of the tameness of such Margulis spacetimes M by establishing the Crooked Plane Conjecture, which states that M admits a fundamental domain bounded by piecewise linear surfaces called crooked planes. The noninfinitesimal version gives an analogous theory for complete anti-de Sitter 3-manifolds.
The discrete spectrum of the Laplacian has been extensively studied on reductive symmetric spaces and on Riemannian locally symmetric spaces. Here we examine it for the first time in the general setting of non-Riemannian, reductive, locally symmetric spaces. For any non-Riemannian, reductive symmetric space X on which the discrete spectrum of the Laplacian is nonempty, and for any discrete group of isometries Gamma whose action on X is sufficiently proper, we construct L^2-eigenfunctions of the Laplacian on X_{Gamma}:=Gamma\X for an infinite set of eigenvalues. These eigenfunctions are obtained as generalized Poincaré series, i.e. as projections to X_{Gamma} of sums, over the Gamma-orbits, of eigenfunctions of the Laplacian on X. We prove that the Poincaré series we construct still converge, and define nonzero L^2-functions, after any small deformation of Gamma, for a large class of groups Gamma. In other words, the infinite set of eigenvalues we construct is stable under small deformations. This contrasts with the classical setting where the nonzero discrete spectrum varies on the Teichmüller space of a compact Riemann surface. We actually construct joint L^2-eigenfunctions for the whole commutative algebra of invariant differential operators on X_{Gamma}.
We prove that any nonabelian, non-Fuchsian representation of a surface group into PSL(2,R) is the holonomy of a folded hyperbolic structure on the surface. Using similar ideas, we establish that any non-Fuchsian representation rho of a surface group into PSL(2,R) is strictly dominated by some Fuchsian representation j, in the sense that the hyperbolic translation lengths for j are uniformly larger than for rho; conversely, any Fuchsian representation j strictly dominates some non-Fuchsian representation rho, whose Euler class can be prescribed. This has applications to compact anti-de Sitter 3-manifolds.
We study proper, isometric actions of nonsolvable discrete groups Gamma on the 3-dimensional Minkowski space R^{2,1} as limits of actions on the 3-dimensional anti-de Sitter space AdS^3. To each such action is associated a deformation of a hyperbolic surface group Gamma_0 inside O(2,1). When Gamma_0 is convex cocompact, we prove that Gamma acts properly on R^{2,1} if and only if this group-level deformation is realized by a deformation of the quotient surface that everywhere contracts distances at a uniform rate. We give two applications in this case. (1) Tameness: A complete flat spacetime is homeomorphic to the interior of a compact manifold. (2) Geometric degeneration: A complete flat spacetime is the rescaled limit of collapsing AdS spacetimes.
We present a list of open questions on various aspects of AdS geometry, that is, the geometry of Lorentz spaces of constant curvature -1. When possible we point out relations with homogeneous spaces and discrete subgroups of Lie groups, to Teichmüller theory, as well as analogs in hyperbolic geometry.
Let G be a real reductive Lie group and H a closed reductive subgroup of G. We investigate the deformation of "standard" compact quotients of G/H, i.e., of quotients of G/H by discrete subgroups Gamma of G that are uniform lattices in a closed reductive subgroup L of G acting properly and cocompactly on G/H. For L of real rank 1, we prove that after a small deformation in G, such a group Gamma remains discrete in G and its action on G/H remains properly discontinuous and cocompact. More generally, we prove that the properness of the action of any convex cocompact subgroup of L on G/H is preserved under small deformations, and we extend this result to reductive homogeneous spaces G/H over any local field. As an application, we obtain compact quotients of SO(2n,2)/U(n,1) by Zariski-dense discrete subgroups of SO(2n,2) acting properly discontinuously.
Let G be the set of k-points of a connected semisimple algebraic group of k-rank one over a nonarchimedean local field k. We describe all finitely generated torsion-free discrete subgroups of G\times G acting properly discontinuously and cocompactly on G by left and right multiplication. We prove that after a small deformation in G\times G such a discrete subgroup keeps acting freely, properly discontinuously, and cocompactly on G. ----- Soit G l'ensemble des k-points d'un groupe algebrique semi-simple connexe de k-rang un sur un corps local ultrametrique k. Nous decrivons tous les sous-groupes discrets de type fini sans torsion de G\times G qui agissent proprement et cocompactement sur G par multiplication a gauche et a droite. Nous montrons qu'apres une petite deformation dans G\times G un tel sous-groupe discret agit encore librement, proprement et cocompactement sur G.
Let k be a local field and G the set of k-points of a connected semisimple algebraic k-group of rank one. We describe all torsion-free discrete subgroups of G\times G acting properly discontinuously on G by left and right multiplication. To this end, we prove a general result on the Cartan projection of discrete groups acting properly discontinuously on corank-one reductive homogeneous spaces over k.