Analytic actions on compact surfaces and fixed points

 Consider an effective real analytic action of a connected Lie group G on a compact connected surface of Euler characteristic χ≠0. We show that if the action has no fixed point then χ≥1 and the Lie algebra 𝒢 of G is isomorphic either to a subalgebra of the affine algebra of ℝ², which is the extension of the ideal of constant vector fields by an irreducible linear subalgebra, or to sl(2,ℝ), o(3), sl(2,ℂ) and sl(3,ℝ). Received: 7 August 2001 Published online: 24 January 2003