We investigate the SL(2,R) invariant geodesic curves with the as- sociated invariant distance function in parabolic geometry. Parabolic geom- etry naturally occurs in the study of SL(2,R) and is placed in between the elliptic and the hyperbolic (also known as the Lobachevsky half-plane and 2- dimensional Minkowski half-plane space-time) geometries. Initially we attempt to use standard methods of finding geodesics but they lead to degeneracy in this setup. Instead, by studying closely the two related elliptic and hyperbolic geometries we discover a unified approach to a more exotic and less obvious parabolic case. With aid of common invariants we describe the possible dis- tance functions that turn out to have some unexpected, interesting properties.
We detect Hilbert manifolds among isometrically homogeneous metric spaces and apply the obtained results to recognizing Hilbert manifolds among homogeneous spaces of the form G/H where G is a metrizable topological group and H is a closed balanced subgroup of G.
This paper is devoted to the study of isometrically homogeneous spaces from the view point of metric geometry. Mainly we focus on those spaces that are homeomorphic to lines. One can reduce the study to those distances on $\R$ that are translation invariant. We study possible values of various metric dimensions of such spaces. One of the main results is the equivalence of two properties: the first one is linear connectedness and the second one is 1-dimensionality, with respect to Nagata dimension. Several concrete pathological examples are provided.
We obtain a topological and weakly equivariant classification of closed three-dimensional Alexandrov spaces with an effective isometric circle action. As an application of the classification we prove a version of the Borel conjecture for closed three-dimensional Alexandrov spaces with circle symmetry.
We classify representations of compact connected Lie groups whose induced action on the unit sphere has an orbit space isometric to a Riemannian orbifold.
We obtain a topological and equivariant classification of closed, connected three-dimensional Alexandrov spaces admitting a local isometric circle action. We show, in particular, that such spaces are homeomorphic to connected sums of some closed 3-manifold with a local circle action and finitely many copies of the suspension of the real projective plane.
We study isometric embeddings of a Euclidean space or a Heisenberg group into a higher dimensional Heisenberg group, where both the source and target space are equipped with an arbitrary left-invariant homogeneous distance that is not necessarily sub-Riemannian. We show that if all infinite geodesics in the target are straight lines, then such an embedding must be a homogeneous homomorphism. We discuss a necessary and certain sufficient conditions for the target space to have this `geodesic linearity property', and we provide various examples.
We study homogeneous metric spaces, by which we mean connected, locally compact metric spaces whose isometry group acts transitively. After a review of some classical results, we use the Gleason-Iwasawa-Montgomery-Yamabe-Zippin structure theory to show that for all positive $ε$, each such space is $(1,ε)$-quasi-isometric to a connected metric Lie group. Next, we develop the structure theory of Lie groups to show that every homogeneous metric manifold is homeomorphically roughly isometric to a quotient space of a connected amenable Lie group, and roughly isometric to a simply connected solvable…
In this paper we show that a countable, residually amenable group admits a proper isometric affine action on some uniformly convex Banach space if and only if one (or equivalently, all) of its box families admits a fibred cofinitely-coarse embedding into some uniformly convex Banach space.
In the setting of step 2 sub-Finsler Carnot groups with strictly convex norms, we prove that all infinite geodesics are lines. It follows that for any other homogeneous distance, all geodesics are lines exactly when the induced norm on the horizontal space is strictly convex. As a further consequence, we show that all isometric embeddings between such homogeneous groups are affine. The core of the proof is an asymptotic study of the extremals given by the Pontryagin Maximum Principle.
For every metric space $X$ we introduce two cardinal characteristics $\mathrm{cov}^\flat(X)$ and $\mathrm{cov}^\sharp(X)$ describing the capacity of balls in $X$. We prove that these cardinal characteristics are invariant under coarse equivalence and prove that two ultrametric spaces $X,Y$ are coarsely equivalent if $\mathrm{cov}^\flat(X)=\mathrm{cov}^\sharp(X)=\mathrm{cov}^\flat(Y)=\mathrm{cov}^\sharp(Y)$. This result implies that an ultrametric space $X$ is coarsely equivalent to an isometrically homogeneous ultrametric space if and only if $\mathrm{cov}^\flat(X)=\mathrm{cov}^\sharp(X)$. Mor…
In this paper we study geodesic Ptolemy metric spaces $X$ which allow proper and cocompact isometric actions of crystallographic or, more generally, virtual polycyclic groups. We show that $X$ is equivariantly rough isometric to a Euclidean space.
Warped cones are metric spaces introduced by John Roe from discrete group actions on compact metric spaces to produce interesting examples in coarse geometry. We show that a certain class of warped cones $\mathcal{O}_Γ(M)$ admit a fibred coarse embedding into a $L_p$-space ($1\leq p<\infty$) if and only if the discrete group $Γ$ admits a proper affine isometric action on a $L_p$-space. This actually holds for any class of Banach spaces stable under taking Lebesgue-Bochner $L_p$-spaces and ultraproducts, e.g., uniformly convex Banach spaces or Banach spaces with nontrivial type. It follows that…
We prove that if a geodesically complete $\mathrm{CAT}(0)$ space $X$ admits a proper cocompact isometric action of a group, then the Izeki-Nayatani invariant of $X$ is less than $1$. Let $G$ be a finite connected graph, $μ_1 (G)$ be the linear spectral gap of $G$, and $λ_1 (G,X)$ be the nonlinear spectral gap of $G$ with respect to such a $\mathrm{CAT}(0)$ space $X$. Then, the result implies that the ratio $λ_1 (G,X) / μ_1 (G)$ is bounded from below by a positive constant which is independent of the graph $G$. It follows that any isometric action of a random group of the graph model on such $X…
Examples of almost-positively and quasi-positively curved spaces of the form M=H((G,h)xF) were discovered recently. Here, h is a left-invariant metric on a compact Lie group G, F is a compact Riemannian manifold on which the subgroup H of G acts isometrically on the left, and M is the orbit space of the diagonal left action of H on (G,h)xF with the induced Riemannian submersion metric. We prove that no new examples of strictly positive sectional curvature exist in this class of metrics. This result generalizes the case F={point} proven by Geroch.
An action of a compact quantum group on a compact metric space $(X,d)$ is (D)-isometric if the distance function is preserved by a diagonal action on $X\times X$. We show that an isometric action in this sense has the following additional property: The corresponding action on the algebra of continuous functions on $X$ by the convolution semigroup of probability measures on the quantum group contracts Lipschitz constants. It is, in other words, isometric in another sense due to H. Li, J. Quaegebeur and M. Sabbe; this partially answers a question of D. Goswami. We also introduce other possible n…
In this paper, we prove that certain spaces are not quasi-isometric to Cayley graphs of finitely generated groups. In particular, we answer a question of Woess and prove a conjecture of Diestel and Leader by showing that certain homogeneous graphs are not quasi-isometric to a Cayley graph of a finitely generated group. This paper is the first in a sequence of papers proving results announced in [EFW0]. In particular, this paper contains many steps in the proofs of quasi-isometric rigidity of lattices in Sol and of the quasi-isometry classification of lamplighter groups. The proofs of those res…
We show that isometries between open sets of Carnot groups are affine. This result generalizes a result of Hamenstadt. Our proof does not rely on her proof. In addition, we study global isometries of general homogeneous manifolds equipped with left-invariant subFinsler distances. We show that each isometry is determined by the blow up at one point. For proving the results, we consider the action of isometries on the space of Killing vector fields. We make use of results by Capogna-Cowling and by Gleason-Montgomery-Zippin for obtaining smoothness of the isometric action.
We study the geometry of warped cones over free, minimal isometric group actions and related constructions of expander graphs. We prove a rigidity theorem for the coarse geometry of such warped cones: Namely, if a group has no abelian factors, then two such warped cones are quasi-isometric if and only if the actions are finite covers of conjugate actions. As a consequence, we produce continuous families of non-quasi-isometric expanders and superexpanders. The proof relies on the use of coarse topology for warped cones, such as a computation of their coarse fundamental groups.
A metric space $\mathrm{M}=(M;\de)$ is {\em homogeneous} if for every isometry $f$ of a finite subspace of $\mathrm{M}$ to a subspace of $\mathrm{M}$ there exists an isometry of $\mathrm{M}$ onto $\mathrm{M}$ extending $f$. A metric space $\boldsymbol{U}$ is an {\em Urysohn} metric space if it is homogeneous and separable and complete and if it isometrically embeds every separable metric space $\mathrm{M}$ with $\dist(\mathrm{M})\subseteq \dist(\boldsymbol{U})$. (With $\dist(\mathrm{M})$ being the set of distances between points in $\mathrm{M}$.) The main results are: (1) A characterization of…
We say that a finite metric space $X$ can be embedded almost isometrically into a class of metric spaces $C$, if for every $ε> 0$ there exists an embedding of $X$ into one of the elements of $C$ with the bi-Lipschitz distortion less then $1 + ε$. We show that almost isometric embeddability conditions are equal for following classes of spaces (a) Quotients of Euclidean spaces by isometric actions of finite groups, (b) $L_2$-Wasserstein spaces over Euclidean spaces, (c) Compact flat manifolds, (d) Compact flat orbifolds, (e) Quotients of connected compact bi-invariant Lie groups by isometric act…
In this paper we study certain groups of bilipschitz maps of the boundary minus a point of a negatively curved space that is an abelian-by-cyclic solvable Lie group, where the extension is given by a matrix whose eigenvalues all lie outside of the unit circle. The case where the extension matrix is diagonal was previously studied by Dymarz. As an application, combined with work of Eskin-Fisher-Whyte and Peng, we provide the last steps in the proof of quasi-isometric rigidity for a class of lattices in solvable Lie groups.
