For a symplectic manifold $(M,\om)$ with exact symplectic form we construct a 2-cocycle on the group of symplectomorphisms and indicate cases when this cocycle is not trivial.
Each element of the commutator subgroup of a group can be represented as a product of commutators. The minimal number of factors in such a product is called the commutator length of the element. The commutator length of a group is defined as the supremum of commutator lengths of elements of its commutator subgroup. We show that for certain closed symplectic manifolds, including complex projective spaces and Grassmannians, the universal cover of the group of Hamiltonian symplectomorphisms of the manifold has infinite commutator length. In particular, we present explicit examples of elements in …
We define a cocycle on the group of symplectic diffeomorphisms of a symplectic manifold and investigate its properties. The main applications are concerned with symplectic actions of discrete groups. For example, we give an alternative proof of the Polterovich theorem about the distortion of cyclic subgroups in finitely generated groups of Hamiltonian diffeomorphisms.
We study growth of 1-cocycles of locally compact groups, with values in unitary representations. Discussing the existence of 1-cocycles with linear growth, we obtain the following alternative for a class of amenable groups G containing polycyclic groups and connected amenable Lie groups: either G has no quasi-isometric embedding into Hilbert space, or G admits a proper cocompact action on some Euclidean space. On the other hand, noting that almost coboundaries (i.e. 1-cocycles approximable by bounded 1-cocycles) have sublinear growth, we discuss the converse, which turns out to hold for amenab…
We introduce a 2-cocycle for symplectic and skew-hermitian hyperbolic groups over arbitrary fields and skew fields, with values in the Witt group of hermitian forms. This cocycle has good functorial properties: it is natural under extension of scalars and stable, so it can be viewed as a universal 2-dimensional characteristic class for these groups. Over R and C, it coincides with the first Chern class.
We prove two theorems of reduction of cocycles taking values in the group of diffeomorphisms of the circle. They generalise previous results obtained by the author concerning rigidity for smooth actions on the circle of Kazhdan's groups and higher rank lattices.
In this paper we construct abelian extensions of the group of diffeomorphisms of a torus. We consider the jacobian map, which is a crossed homomorphism from the group of diffeomorphisms into a toroidal gauge group. A pull-back under this map of a central 2-cocycle on a gauge group turns out to be an abelian cocycle on the group of diffeomorphisms. We show that in the case of a circle, the Virasoro-Bott cocycle is a pull-back of the Heisenberg cocycle. We also give an abelian generalization of the Virasoro-Bott cocycle to the case of a manifold with a volume form.
Let G be a group, H a hyperbolically embedded subgroup of G, V a normed G-module, U an H-invariant submodule of V. We propose a general construction which allows to extend 1-quasi-cocycles on H with values in U to 1-quasi-cocycles on G with values in V. As an application, we show that every group G with a non-degenerate hyperbolically embedded subgroup has dim H^2_b (G, l^p(G))=\infty for p\in [1, \infty). This covers many previously known results in a uniform way. Applying our extension to quasimorphisms and using Bavard duality, we also show that hyperbolically embedded subgroups are undisto…
Chung and Jiang showed that, if a one ended group contains an infinite order element, then every continuous cocycle over the full shift on that group, taking values in a discrete group, must be cohomologous to a homomorphism. We show that their conclusion holds for all one ended groups, so that the hypothesis of admitting an infinite order element may be omitted.
In this article we study cocycles of discrete countable groups with values in l^2(G) and the ring of affiliated operators UG. We clarify properties of the first cohomology of a group G with coefficients in l^2(G) and answer several questions from [CTV]. Moreover, we obtain strong results about the existence of free subgroups and the subgroup structure, provided the group has a positive first l^2-Betti number. We give numerous applications and examples of groups which satisfy our assumptions.
We prove an analog for integrable measurable cocycles of Pansu's differentiation theorem for Lipschitz maps between Carnot-Carathéodory spaces. This yields an alternative, ergodic theoretic proof of Pansu's quasi-isometric rigidity theorem for nilpotent groups, answers a question of Tim Austin regarding integrable measure equivalence between nilpotent groups, and gives an independent proof and strengthening of Austin's result that integrable measure equivalent nilpotent groups have bi-Lipschitz asymptotic cones. Our main tools are a nilpotent-valued cocycle ergodic theorem and a Poincaré recur…
We use cross ratios to describe second real continuous bounded cohomology for locally compact topological groups. We also derive a rigidity result for cocycles with values in the isometry group of a proper hyperbolic geodesic metric space.
T. Mochizuki determined all 3-cocycles of the third quandle cohomologies of Alexander quandles on finite fields. We show that all the 3-cocycles, except those of 2-cocycle forms, are derived from group 3-cocycles of a meta-abelian group. Further, the quandle cocycle invariant of a link using Mochizuki's 3-cocycle is equivalent to a $\Z$-equivariant part of the Dijkgraaf-Witten invariant of a cyclic covering of $S^3$ branched over the link using the group. We compute some Massey triple products via the former invariant.
Consider a free ergodic measure preserving profinite action $Γ\curvearrowright X$ (i.e. an inverse limit of actions $Γ\curvearrowright X_n$, with $X_n$ finite) of a countable property (T) group $Γ$ (more generally of a group $Γ$ which admits an infinite normal subgroup $Γ_0$ such that the inclusion $Γ_0\subsetΓ$ has relative property (T) and $Γ/Γ_0$ is finitely generated) on a standard probability space $X$. We prove that if $w:Γ\times X\to Λ$ is a measurable cocycle with values in a countable group $Λ$, then $w$ is cohomologous to a cocycle $w'$ which factors through the map $Γ\times X\to Γ\t…
Let $Γ$ be an irreducible lattice in a product of two locally compact groups and assume that $Γ$ is densely embedded in a profinite group $K$. We give necessary conditions which imply that the left translation action $Γ\curvearrowright K$ is "virtually" cocycle superrigid: any cocycle $w:Γ\times K\rightarrowΔ$ with values in a countable group $Δ$ is cohomologous to a cocycle which factors through the map $Γ\times K\rightarrowΓ\times K_0$, for some finite quotient group $K_0$ of $K$. As a corollary, we deduce that any ergodic profinite action of $Γ=\text{SL}_2(\mathbb Z[S^{-1}])$ is virtually c…
In this article, we prove that if a finitely generated group $G$ is not torsion then a necessary and sufficient condition for every full shift over $G$ has (continuous) cocycle superrigidity is that $G$ has one end. It is a topological version of the well known Popa's measurable cocycle superrigidity theorem. For the proof of sufficient condition, we introduce a new specification property for shifts over general groups which play a similar role as malleable property in the measurable setting. This new specification property is good enough for us to extend the method using homoclinic equivalenc…
We prove the $L_p$ Poincaré inequalities with constant $C\sqrt{p}$ for $1$-cocycles on countable discrete groups under Bakry--Emery's $Γ_2$-criterion. These inequalities determine an analogue of subgaussian behavior for 1-cocycles. Our theorem improves some of our previous results in this direction, and in particular implies Efraim and Lust-Piquard's Poincaré type inequalities for the Walsh system. The key new ingredient in our proof is a decoupling argument. As complementary results, we also show that the spectral gap inequality implies the $L_p$ Poincaré inequalities with constant $C{p}$ und…
Werner Meyer constructed a cocycle in $H^2(Sp(2g, \mathbb{Z}); \mathbb{Z})$ which computes the signature of a closed oriented surface bundle over a surface, with fibre a surface of genus g. By studying properties of this cocycle, he also showed that the signature of such a surface bundle is a multiple of 4. In this paper, we study the signature cocycles both from the geometric and algebraic points of view. We present geometric constructions which are relevant to the signature cocycle and provide an alternative to Meyer's decomposition of a surface bundle. Furthermore, we discuss the precise re…
In this article, we will prove a full topological version of Popa's measurable cocycle superrigidity theorem for full shifts. More precisely, we prove that every Hölder continuous cocycle for the full shifts of every finitely generated group $G$ that has one end, undistorted elements and sub-exponential divergence function is cohomologous to a group homomorphism via a Hölder continuous transfer map if the target group is complete and admits a compatible bi-invariant metric. Using the ideas of Behrstock, Dru\c {t}u, Mosher, Mozes and Sapir, we show that the class of our acting groups is large i…
Let $G$ be either a profinite or a connected compact group, and $Γ, Λ$ be finitely generated dense subgroups. Assuming that the left translation action of $Γ$ on $G$ is strongly ergodic, we prove that any cocycle for the left-right translation action of $Γ\timesΛ$ on $G$ with values in a countable group is virtually cohomologous to a group homomorphism. Moreover, we prove that the same holds if $G$ is a (not necessarily compact) connected simple Lie group provided that $Λ$ contains an infinite cyclic subgroup with compact closure. We derive several applications to OE - and W$^*$- superrigidity…
This paper studies Moore's measurable cohomology theory for locally compact groups and Polish modules. An elementary dimension-shifting argument is used to show that all classes in that theory have representatives with considerable extra topological structure beyond measurability. Using this, for certain target modules one can also construct a direct comparison map with a different cohomology theory for topological groups defined by Segal, and show that this map is an isomorphism.
We prove that every homomorphism from the elementary Chevalley group over a finitely generated unital commutative ring associated with reduced irreducible classical root system of rank at least 2, and ME analogues of such groups, into acylindrically hyperbolic groups has an absolutely elliptic image. This result provides a non-arithmetic generalization of homomorphism superrigidity of Farb--Kaimanovich--Masur and Bridson--Wade.
We study the projective derivative as a cocycle of Möbius transformations over groups of circle diffeomorphisms. By computing precise expressions for this cocycle, we obtain several results about reducibility and almost reducibility to a cocycle of rotations. We also introduce an extension of this cocycle to the diagonal action on the 3-torus for which we generalize the previous results.