Limits of Geometries
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- by Daryl Cooper, Jeffrey Danciger and Anna Wienhard PDF
- Trans. Amer. Math. Soc. 370 (2018), 6585-6627 Request permission
Abstract:
A geometric transition is a continuous path of geometric structures that changes type, meaning that the model geometry, i.e., the homogeneous space on which the structures are modeled, abruptly changes. In order to rigorously study transitions, one must define a notion of geometric limit at the level of homogeneous spaces, describing the basic process by which one homogeneous geometry may transform into another. We develop a general framework to describe transitions in the context that both geometries involved are represented as sub-geometries of a larger ambient geometry. Specializing to the setting of real projective geometry, we classify the geometric limits of any sub-geometry whose structure group is a symmetric subgroup of the projective general linear group. As an application, we classify all limits of three-dimensional hyperbolic geometry inside of projective geometry, finding Euclidean, Nil, and Sol geometry among the limits. We prove, however, that the other Thurston geometries, in particular $\mathbb {H}^2 \times \mathbb {R}$ and $\widetilde {\mathrm {SL}_2\mathbb {R}}$, do not embed in any limit of hyperbolic geometry in this sense.References
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Additional Information
- Daryl Cooper
- Affiliation: Department of Mathematics, University of California Santa Barbara, South Hall, Room 6607, Santa Barbara, CA 93106-3080
- MR Author ID: 239760
- Email: cooper@math.ucsb.edu
- Jeffrey Danciger
- Affiliation: Department of Mathematics, University of Texas Austin, 1 University Station C1200, Austin, Texas 78712-1202
- MR Author ID: 772278
- Email: jdanciger@math.utexas.edu
- Anna Wienhard
- Affiliation: Ruprecht-Karls Universität Heidelberg, Mathematisches Institut, Im Neuenheimer Feld 205, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany — and — Heidelberg Institute for Theoretical Studies, Schloss-Wolfsbrunnenweg 35, 69118 Heidelberg, Germany.
- Email: wienhard@uni-heidelberg.de
- Received by editor(s): February 13, 2015
- Received by editor(s) in revised form: December 20, 2016
- Published electronically: March 21, 2018
- © Copyright 2018 American Mathematical Society
- Journal: Trans. Amer. Math. Soc. 370 (2018), 6585-6627
- MSC (2010): Primary 57M50; Secondary 22E15, 57S25, 57S20
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.1090/tran/7174
- MathSciNet review: 3814342