Arithmetic Groups and Tessellations of Homogeneous Spaces

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AbstractWitteOne focus of this project is the study of tessellations of homogeneous spaces. Namely, if G/H is a non-compact, simply connected homogeneous space of a connected Lie group G, the question is whether there is a properly discontinuous subgroup D of G, such that the orbit space D\G/H is compact. Some special cases were studied by L. Auslander, Y. Benoist, G. A. Margulis, R. J. Zimmer, and others. In collaboration with H. Oh and A. Iozzi, the PI has recently made progress in understanding the case where G is a semisimple Lie group of real rank two, including a detailed study of the case where G = SO(2,2n) or SU(2,2n). The PI will continue this research, both for real rank two and higher real rank. He will also continue his study of actions of arithmetic groups on the circle, and related questions.This project studies crystals in mathematical spaces other than the 3-dimensional universe that we live in. (A crystal is a material whose atomic structure is very symmetric.) The most fundamental problem in this subject is to decide which spaces contain crystals, and which do not. (For this question, the most interesting spaces are homogeneous, which means that every point of the space looks exactly like all of the other points.) Mathematicians have made substantial progress on this problem in recent years, and this project will continue the work. In cases where crystals do exist, the project will investigate the algebraic properties of the group formed by the symmetries of a crystal.