arXiv research

Uniform waist inequalities proven for manifolds with Kazhdan groups in codimension two.

The group of simplicial automorphisms of a Tits-Kac-Moody ininite building of thickness q associated to a cocompact reflexion group with fundamental domain a simplex, is Kazhdan for q sufficiently large. Thus we obtain families of new Kazhdan groups: two in dimension 3 and one in dimension 4. The proof uses continuos c…

We prove that the mapping class group of a closed oriented surface of genus at least two does not have Kazhdan's property (T).

Study non-vanishing $\ell^2$-Betti numbers for specific groups.

We prove a Kazhdan-Margulis-Zassenhaus lemma for Hilbert geometries. More precisely, in every dimension $n$ there exists a constant $\varepsilon_n > 0$ such that, for any properly open convex set $Ø$ and any point $x \in Ø$, any discrete group generated by a finite number of automorphisms of $Ø$, which displace $x$ at …

The book explores analytic properties of groups and their actions.

We prove the Carlson-Toledo conjecture (for all Kahler groups which do not have property T of Kazhdan).We deduce a conjecture of Goldman-Donaldson for all 3-manifold groups which are rich in the sense of [Re2].

For a pinched Hadamard manifold $X$ and a discrete group of isometries $Γ$ of $X$, the critical exponent $δ_Γ$ is the exponential growth rate of the orbit of a point in $X$ under the action of $Γ$. We show that the critical exponent for any family $\mathcal{N}$ of normal subgroups of $Γ_0$ has the same coarse behaviour…

Define an arithmetic variety to be the quotient of a bounded symmetric domain by an arithmetic group. An arithmetic variety is algebraic, and the theorem in question states that when one applies an automorphism of the field of complex numbers to the coefficients of an arithmetic variety the resulting variety is again a…

We show that groups satisfying Kazhdan's property (T) have no unbounded actions on finite dimensional CAT(0) cube complexes, and deduce that there is a locally CAT(-1) Riemannian manifold which is not homotopy equivalent to any finite dimensional, locally CAT(0) cube complex.

Pseudo-automorphisms are birational transformations acting as regular automorphisms in codimension 1. We import ideas from geometric group theory to prove that a group of birational transformations that satisfies a fixed point property on CAT(0) cubical complexes, for example a discrete countable group with Kazhdan Pro…

New quasimorphisms constructed for manifolds with negative curvature.

Using conjugation of Shimura varieties, we produce nonisomorphic, cocompact, torsion-free lattices in $\mathrm{PU}(n,1)$ with isomorphic profinite completions for all $n \ge 2$. This disproves a conjecture of D. Kazhdan and gives the first examples nonisomorphic lattices in a semisimple Lie group of real rank one with …

Associated to each finite dimensional linear representation of a group G, there is a vector bundle over the classifying space BG. This construction was studied extensively for compact groups by Atiyah and Segal. We introduce a homotopy theoretical framework for studying the Atiyah-Segal construction in the context of i…

In this paper, we propose a property which is a natural generalization of Kazhdan's property $(T)$ and prove that many, but not all, groups with property $(T)$ also have this property. Let $\G$ be a finitely generated group. One definition of $\G$ having property $(T)$ is that $H^1(\G,π,\fh)=0$ where the coefficient mo…

The main goal of this paper is a detailed study of asymptotic cones of the mapping class groups. In particular, we prove that every asymptotic cone of a mapping class group has a bi-Lipschitz equivariant embedding into a product of real trees, sending limits of hierarchy paths onto geodesics, and with image a median su…

Let S be a connected orientable surface with finitely many punctures, finitely many boundary components, and genus at least 6. Then any C^1 action of the mapping class group of S on the circle is trivial. The techniques used in the proof of this result permit us to show that products of Kazhdan groups and certain latti…

We classify all closed, aspherical Riemannian manifolds M whose universal cover has indiscrete isometry group. One sample application is the theorem that any such M with word-hyperbolic fundamental group must be isometric to a negatively curved, locally symmetric manifold. Another application is the classification of a…

We provide a smoothening criterion for group actions on manifolds by singular diffeomorphisms. We prove that if a countable group $Γ$ has the fixed point property FW for walls (e.g. if it has property (T)), every aperiodic action of $Γ$ by diffeomorphisms that are of class $C^r$ with countably many singularities is con…

We investigate the rigidity and asymptotic properties of quantum SU(2) representations of mapping class groups. In the spherical braid group case the trivial representation is not isolated in the family of quantum SU(2) representations. In particular, they may be used to give an explicit check that spherical braid grou…

Let $Γ$ be a discrete group with property $(T)$ of Kazhdan. We prove that any Riemannian isometric action of $Γ$ on a compact manifold $X$ is locally rigid. We also prove a more general foliated version of this result. The foliated result is used in our proof of local rigidity for standard actions of higher rank semisi…

Let $X$ be a proper geodesic Gromov hyperbolic metric space and let $G$ be a cocompact group of isometries of $X$ admitting a uniform lattice. Let $d$ be the Hausdorff dimension of the Gromov boundary $\partial X$. We define the critical exponent $δ(μ)$ of any discrete invariant random subgroup $μ$ of the locally compa…

We consider two random group models: the hexagonal model and the square model, defined as the quotient of a free group by a random set of reduced words of length four and six respectively. Our first main result is that in this model there exists a sharp density threshold for Kazhdan's Property (T) and it equals 1/3. Ou…

New basis confirms Thurston's conjecture and reveals knot configurations.

We construct finitely generated groups with strong fixed point properties. Let $\mathcal{X}_{ac}$ be the class of Hausdorff spaces of finite covering dimension which are mod-$p$ acyclic for at least one prime $p$. We produce the first examples of infinite finitely generated groups $Q$ with the property that for any act…

We trade matrix factorizations and Koszul complexes for Hochschild homology of Soergel bimodules to modify the construction of triply-graded link homology and relate it to Kazhdan-Lusztig theory.

This book provides a gentle introduction to the study of arithmetic subgroups of semisimple Lie groups. This means that the goal is to understand the group SL(n,Z) and certain of its subgroups. Among the major results discussed in the later chapters are the Mostow Rigidity Theorem, the Margulis Superrigidity Theorem, R…

Random quotients preserve hyperbolic properties in groups.

We give a positive answer to the Berry-Robbins problem for any compact Lie group G, i.e. we show the existence of a smooth W-equivariant map from the space of regular triples in a Cartan subalgebra to the flag manifold G/T. This map is constructed via solutions to Nahm's equations and it is compatible with the SO(3) ac…

We study natural bases for two constructions of the irreducible representation of the symmetric group corresponding to $[n,n,n]$: the {\em reduced web} basis associated to Kuperberg's combinatorial description of the spider category; and the {\em left cell basis} for the left cell construction of Kazhdan and Lusztig. I…

Given a semisimple stable autonomous tensor category over a field $K$, to any group presentation with finite number of generators we associate an element $Q(P)\in K$ invariant under the Andrews-Curtis moves. We show that in fact, this is the same invariant as the one produced by the algorithm of Frank Quinn. The new de…

We extend the notion of canonical measures to all (possibly non-compact) metric graphs. This will allow us to introduce a notion of "hyperbolic measures" on universal covers of metric graphs. Kazhdan's theorem for Riemann surfaces describes the limiting behavior of canonical (Arakelov) measures on finite covers in rela…

We explain an elementary topological construction of the Springer representation on the homology of (topological) Springer fibers of types C and D in the case of nilpotent endomorphisms with two Jordan blocks. The Weyl group and component group actions admit a diagrammatic description in terms of cup diagrams which app…

We study the size of the isometry group Isom(M, g) of Riemannian manifolds (M, g) as g varies. For M not admitting a circle action, we show that the order of Isom(M, g) can be universally bounded in terms of the bounds on Ricci curvature, diameter, and injectivity radius of M. This generalizes results known for negativ…

The paper proves that certain spaces have injective balls of any radius.

We introduce subgroups ${\mathcal{B}}_g< {\mathcal H}_g$ of the mapping class group $Mod(Σ_g)$ of a closed surface of genus $g \ge 0$ with a Cantor set removed, which are extensions of Thompson's group $V$ by a direct limit of mapping class groups of compact surfaces of genus $g$. We first show that both ${\mathcal{B}}…

We study the rational permutation braids, that is the elements of an Artin-Tits group of spherical type which can be written $x^{-1} y$ where $x$ and $y$ are prefixes of the Garside element of the braid monoid. We give a geometric characterization of these braids in type $A_n$ and $B_n$ and then show that in spherical …

In this paper we show that the normal closure of the mth power of a half-twist has infinite index in the mapping class group of a punctured sphere. Furthermore, in some cases we prove that the quotient of the mapping class group of the punctured sphere by the normal closure of a power of a half-twist contains a free ab…

The paper finds free semigroups in dense subgroups of Lie groups with critical exponents arbitrarily close to the subgroup's.

Article explains and implements mean curvature flow for surface parametrization.

We use partial actions, as formalized by Exel, to construct various commensurating actions. We use this in the context of groups piecewise preserving a geometric structure, and we interpret the transfixing property of these commensurating actions as the existence of a model for which the group acts preserving the geome…

Springer varieties are studied because their cohomology carries a natural action of the symmetric group $S_n$ and their top-dimensional cohomology is irreducible. In his work on tangle invariants, Khovanov constructed a family of Springer varieties $X_n$ as subvarieties of the product of spheres $(S^2)^n$. We show that…

A classic theorem of Kazhdan and Margulis states that for any semisimple Lie group without compact factors, there is a positive lower bound on the covolume of lattices. H. C. Wang's subsequent quantitative analysis showed that the fundamental domain of any lattice contains a ball whose radius depends only on the group …

In this paper, we investigate the ergodic and rigidity properties of weakly hyperbolic group actions. Motivated by classical theorems describing Anosov diffeomorphisms, we obtain two main results: First, all C^2 volume preserving weakly hyperbolic actions on closed manifolds are ergodic. This result generalizes Anosov'…

The paper explores handlebody versions of various diagram algebras.

Introduces a new method for symplectic reduction along submanifolds.

We study the representation theory of the smallest quantum group and its categorification. The first part of the paper contains an easy visualization of the 3j-symbols in terms of weighted signed line arrangements in a fixed triangle and new binomial expressions for the 3j-symbols. All these formulas are realized as gr…

Researchers correct earlier work on surgeries of Gieseking's hyperbolic simplex manifold.