Property (<Emphasis Type="Italic">T</Emphasis>) and rigidity for actions on Banach spaces

We study property (T) and the fixed-point property for actions on L ^p and other Banach spaces. We show that property (T) holds when L ² is replaced by L ^p (and even a subspace/quotient of L ^p ), and that in fact it is independent of 1≤p<∞. We show that the fixed-point property for L ^p follows from property (T) when 1<p< 2+ε. For simple Lie groups and their lattices, we prove that the fixed-point property for L ^p holds for any 1< p<∞ if and only if the rank is at least two. Finally, we obtain a superrigidity result for actions of irreducible lattices in products of general groups on superreflexive spaces. Bader partially supported by ISF grant 100146; Furman partially supported by NSF grants DMS-0094245 and DMS-0604611; Gelander partially supported by NSF grant DMS-0404557 and BSF grant 2004010; Monod partially supported by FNS (CH) and NSF (US).     

Uniform independence in linear groups

We show that for any non-virtually solvable finitely generated group of matrices over any field, there is an integer m such that, given an arbitrary finite generating set for the group, one may find two elements a and b that are both products of at most m generators, such that a and b are free generators of a free subgroup. This uniformity result improves the original statement of the Tits alternative.     

Counting commensurability classes of hyperbolic manifolds

Gromov and Piatetski-Shapiro proved existence of finite volume non-arithmetic hyperbolic manifolds of any given dimension. In dimension four and higher, we show that there are about v ^v such manifolds of volume at most v, considered up to commensurability. Since the number of arithmetic ones tends to be polynomial, almost all hyperbolic manifolds are non-arithmetic in an appropriate sense. Moreover, by restricting attention to non-compact manifolds, our result implies the same growth type for the number of quasi-isometry classes of lattices in SO(n, 1). Our method involves a geometric graph-of-spaces construction that relies on arithmetic properties of certain quadratic forms.     

The generalized Chern conjecture for manifolds that are locally a product of surfaces

We consider closed manifolds that admit a metric locally isometric to a product of symmetric planes. For such manifolds, we prove that the Euler characteristic is an obstruction to the existence of flat structures, confirming an old conjecture proved by Milnor in dimension 2. In particular, the Chern conjecture follows in these cases. The proof goes via a new sharp Milnor–Wood inequality for Riemannian manifolds that are locally a product of hyperbolic planes. Furthermore, we analyze the possible flat vector bundles over such manifolds. Over closed Hilbert–Blumenthal modular varieties, we show that there are finitely many flat structures with nonzero Euler number and none of them corresponds to the tangent bundle. Some of the main results were announced in [M. Bucher, T. Gelander, Milnor–Wood inequalities for manifolds locally isometric to a product of hyperbolic planes, C. R. Acad. Sci. Paris Ser. I 346 (2008) 661–666].     

A fixed point theorem for <Emphasis Type="Italic">L</Emphasis><Superscript>1</Superscript> spaces

We prove a fixed point theorem for a family of Banach spaces including notably L ¹ and its non-commutative analogues. Several applications are given, e.g. the optimal solution to the “derivation problem” studied since the 1960s.     

A Note on Local Rigidity

The aim of this note is to give a geometric proof for classical local rigidity of lattices in semisimple Lie groups. We are reproving well known results in a more geometric (and hopefully clearer) way.     

Superrigidity, Generalized Harmonic Maps and Uniformly Convex Spaces

We prove several superrigidity results for isometric actions on Busemann non-positively curved uniformly convex metric spaces. In particular we generalize some recent theorems of N. Monod on uniform and certain non-uniform irreducible lattices in products of locally compact groups, and we give a proof of an unpublished result on commensurability superrigidity due to G.A. Margulis. The proofs rely on certain notions of harmonic maps and the study of their existence, uniqueness, and continuity. Submitted: June 2006, Revision: June 2007, Accepted: July 2007     

On the growth of Betti numbers of locally symmetric spaces

We announce new results concerning the asymptotic behavior of the Betti numbers of higher rank locally symmetric spaces as their volumes tend to infinity. Our main theorem is a uniform version of the Lück Approximation Theorem (Lück, 1994 [10]) which is much stronger than the linear upper bounds on Betti numbers given by Gromov in Ballmann et al. (1985) [3].The basic idea is to adapt the theory of local convergence, originally introduced for sequences of graphs of bounded degree by Benjamini and Schramm, to sequences of Riemannian manifolds. Using rigidity theory we are able to show that when the volume tends to infinity, the manifolds locally converge to the universal cover in a sufficiently strong manner that allows us to derive the convergence of the normalized Betti numbers.     

On deformations of <Emphasis Type="Italic">F</Emphasis><Subscript><Emphasis Type="Italic">n</Emphasis></Subscript> in compact Lie groups

We study some properties of the varieties of deformations of free groups in compact Lie groups. In particular, we prove a conjecture of Margulis and Soifer about the density of non-virtually free points in such variety, and a conjecture of Goldman on the ergodicity of the action of Aut(F _n ) on such variety when n ≥ 3. The author was partially supported by NSF grant DMS-0404557, BSF grant 2004010, and the ‘Finite Structures’ Marie Curie Host Fellowship, carried out at the Alfréd Rényi Institute of Mathematics in Budapest.