Spherical orbits and representations of Uε(g)

Let U_ε(g) be the simply connected quantized enveloping algebra at roots of one associated to a finite dimensional complex simple Lie algebra g. The De Concini-Kac-Procesi conjecture on the dimension of the irreducible representations of U_ε(g) is proved for the representations corresponding to the spherical conjugacy classes of the simply connected algebraic group G with Lie algebra g. We achieve this result by means of a new characterization of the spherical conjugacy classes of G in terms of elements of the Weyl group.     

Cross ratios, translation lengths and maximal representations

We show that there is a unique functorial way to extend the classical four-point cross ratio on the unit circle to a family of four-point invariants on Shilov boundaries of bounded symmetric domains of tube type. These generalized cross ratios can be used to estimate translation lengths of a large class of isometries of the underlying bounded symmetric domains. They can also be used to associate with every maximal representation of a surface group with Hermitian target a strict weak cross ratio on the circle in the sense of Labourie. In this context our translation length estimates then imply that maximal representations with Hermitian target are well-displacing, and consequently that the action of the mapping class group on the moduli space of maximal representations into a Hermitian Lie group is proper.     

A Higgs bundle on a Hermitian symmetric space,II

Let M : = Γ\G/K be the quotient of an irreducible Hermitian symmetric space G/K by a torsionfree cocompact lattice G ì G{\Gamma \subset G}. Let V be a complex irreducible representation of G. We give a Hodge decomposition of the cohomology of the Γ-module V in terms of the cohomologies of automorphic vector bundles on M associated to the Lie algebra cohomologies H*(\mathfrak p⁺ ,V){H*({\mathfrak p}^{+} ,V)}.     

Asymptotics of characters of symmetric groups, genus expansion and free probability

The convolution of indicators of two conjugacy classes on the symmetric group S_q is usually a complicated linear combination of indicators of many conjugacy classes. Similarly, a product of the moments of the Jucys-Murphy element involves many conjugacy classes with complicated coefficients. In this article, we consider a combinatorial setup which allows us to manipulate such products easily: to each conjugacy class we associate a two-dimensional surface and the asymptotic properties of the conjugacy class depend only on the genus of the resulting surface. This construction closely resembles the genus expansion from the random matrix theory. As the main application we study irreducible representations of symmetric groups S_q for large q. We find the asymptotic behavior of characters when the corresponding Young diagram rescaled by a factor q^-1/2 converge to a prescribed shape. The character formula (known as the Kerov polynomial) can be viewed as a power series, the terms of which correspond to two-dimensional surfaces with prescribed genus and we compute explicitly the first two terms, thus we prove a conjecture of Biane.     

Marked length rigidity of rank one symmetric spaces and their product

In this paper we show that if two Zariski dense representations, from a group G into Iso(X) where X is rank one symmetric space, have the proportional marked length spectrum, then they are conjugate. As a generalization we show that a Zariski dense representation into the isometry group of the product of rank one symmetric spaces is determined by the marked cross ratio.     

Weyl chamber flow on irreducible quotients of PSL(2, ℝ) × PSL(2, ℝ)

We study the topological dynamics of the action of the diagonal subgroup on quotients Γ\PSL(2, ℝ) × PSL(2, ℝ), where Γ is an irreducible lattice. Closed orbits are described and a set of points of dense orbit is explicitly given. Such properties are expressed using the Furstenberg boundary of the associated symmetric space ℍ × ℍ.     

Conjugacy classes of non-connected semisimple algebraic groups

Consider a non-connected algebraic group G = G ⋉ Γ with semisimple identity component G and a subgroup of its diagram automorphisms Γ. The identity component G acts on a fixed exterior component Gτ, id ≠ τ ∈ Γ by conjugation. In this paper we will describe the conjugacy classes and the invariant theory of this action. Let T be a τ -stable maximal torus of G and its Weyl group W. Then the quotient space Gτ//G is isomorphic to (T/(1 − τ )(T))/W^τ. Furthermore, exploiting the Jordan decomposition, the reduced fibres of this quotient map are naturally associated bundles over semisimple G-orbits. Similar to Steinberg's connected and simply connected case [22] and under additional assumptions on the fundamental group of G, a global section to this quotient map exists. The material presented here is a synopsis of the Ph.D thesis of the author, cf. [15].     

Automorphisms of groups and of schemes of finite type

We show first that certain automorphism groups of algebraic varieties, and even schemes, are residually finite and virtually torsion free. (A group virtually has a property if some subgroup of finite index has it.) The rest of the paper is devoted to a study of the groups of automorphisms. Aut(Γ) and outer automorphisms Out(Γ) of a finitely generated group Γ, by using the finite-dimensional representations of Γ. This is an old idea (cf. the discussion of Magnus in [11]). In particular the classes of semi-simplen-dimensional representations of Γ are parametrized by an algebraic varietyS _n (Γ) on which Out(Γ) acts. We can apply the above results to this action and sometimes conclude that Out(Γ) is residually finite and virtually torsion free. This is true, for example, when Γ is a free group, or a surface group. In the latter case Out(Γ) is a “mapping class group.” Partially supported by the NSF under Grant MCS 80-05802.     

Polynomial representation growth and the congruence subgroup problem

Let Γ be anS-arithmetic group in a semisimple group. We show that if Γ has the congruence subgroup property then the number of isomorphism classes of irreducible complexn-dimensional characters of Γ is polynomially bounded. In characteristic zero, the converse is also true. We conjecture that the converse also holds in positive characteristic, and we prove some partial results in this direction. Dedicated to Andy Magid on the occasion of his sixtieth birthday     

Free group representations from vector-valued multiplicative functions,I

Let Γ denote a noncommutative free group and let Ω stand for its boundary. We construct a large class of unitary representations of Γ. This class contains many previously studied representations, and is closed under several natural operations. Each of the constructed representations is in fact a representation of Γ ⋉_λ C(Ω). We prove here that each of them is irreducible as a representation of Γ ⋉_λ C(Ω). Actually, as will be shown in further work, each of them is irreducible as a representation of Γ, or is the direct sum of exactly two irreducible, inequivalent Γ-representations. This research was supported by the Italian CNR.     

On graphs related to conjugacy classes of groups

LetG be a finite group. Attach toG the following two graphs: Γ — its vertices are the non-central conjugacy classes ofG, and two vertices are connected if their sizes arenot coprime, and Γ* — its vertices are the prime divisors of sizes of conjugacy classes ofG, and two vertices are connected if they both divide the size of some conjugacy class ofG. We prove that whenever Γ* is connected then its diameter is at most 3, (this result was independently proved in [3], for solvable groups) and Γ* is disconnected if and only ifG is quasi-Frobenius with abelian kernel and complements. Using the method of that proof we give an alternative proof to Theorems in [1],[2],[6], namely that the diameter of Γ is also at most 3, whenever the graph is connected, and that Γ is disconnected if and only ifG is quasi-Frobenius with abelian kernel and complements. As a result we conclude that both Γ and Γ* have at most two connected components. In [2],[3] it is shown that the above bounds are best possible. The content of this paper corresponds to a part of the author’s Ph.D. thesis carried out at the Tel Aviv University under the supervision of Prof. Marcel Herzog.     

Affinely equivalent complete flat manifolds

Let E _Aff(Γ,G, m) be the set of affine equivalence classes of m-dimensional complete flat manifolds with a fixed fundamental group Γ and a fixed holonomy group G. Let n be the dimension of a closed flat manifold whose fundamental group is isomorphic to Γ. We describe E _Aff(Γ,G, m) in terms of equivalence classes of pairs (ε, ρ), consisting of epimorphisms of Γ onto G and representations of G in ℝ ^m-n . As an application we give some estimates of card E _Aff(Γ,G, m).     

Matrix random products with singular harmonic measure

Any Zariski dense countable subgroup of SL(d, \mathbb R){SL(d, \mathbb {R})} is shown to carry a non-degenerate finitely supported symmetric random walk such that its harmonic measure on the flag space is singular. The main ingredients of the proof are: (1) a new upper estimate for the Hausdorff dimension of the projections of the harmonic measure onto Grassmannians in \mathbb R^d{\mathbb {R}^d} in terms of the associated differential entropies and differences between the Lyapunov exponents; (2) an explicit construction of random walks with uniformly bounded entropy and arbitrarily long Lyapunov vector.     

Generalized Whittaker vectors for holomorphic and quaternionic representations

The conjugacy class of parabolic subgroups with Heisenberg unipotent radical in a simple Lie groups over ³ not of type C_nC_{n} contains an element defined over  for each quaternionic real form. In this paper we study the Whittaker models for quaternionic discrete series of these real forms and prove results analogous and by analogous methods to the case of simple Lie groups over  that are the automorphism groups of tube type Hermitian symmetric domain and (so-called Bessel models) for holomorphic representations. In particular we calculate the decomposition of the space of Whittaker vectors under the action of the stabilizer of the corresponding character in a Levi factor of the Heisenberg parabolic subgroup.     

On the monodromy of the moduli space of Calabi–Yau threefolds coming from eight planes in {\mathbb{P}^3}

It is a fundamental problem in geometry to decide which moduli spaces of polarized algebraic varieties are embedded by their period maps as Zariski open subsets of locally Hermitian symmetric domains. In the present work we prove that the moduli space of Calabi–Yau threefolds coming from eight planes in ${\mathbb{P}^3}$ does not have this property. We show furthermore that the monodromy group of a good family is Zariski dense in the corresponding symplectic group. Moreover, we study a natural sublocus which we call hyperelliptic locus, over which the variation of Hodge structures is naturally isomorphic to wedge product of a variation of Hodge structures of weight one. It turns out the hyperelliptic locus does not extend to a Shimura subvariety of type III (Siegel space) within the moduli space. Besides general Hodge theory, representation theory and computational commutative algebra, one of the proofs depends on a new result on the tensor product decomposition of complex polarized variations of Hodge structures.     

特征标表中零点个数很少的有限可解群

（１）与（２）均曾研究过有某特征标恰在两个共轭类上取非零值的有限群。本文讨论上述情形的另一极端,即每个不可约特征标至多在ｐ个共轭类上取零值的有限可解群,这里ｐ为群阶的最小素因子,通过对极小非交换商群的分析,我们将刻划这类群的结构。     

Kazhdan constants for conjugacy classes of compact groups

Kazhdan constants relative to conjugacy classes of compact groups are computed. They depend on the nontrivial irreducible characters of the respective group. The result is applied, in particular, to finite groups of Lie type, symmetric groups, and the group SU(n).