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Title:
Three proofs from dynamics of rigidity of surface group actions
Speaker:
Abstract:
In previous talks (not a prerequisite!), I've described examples of actions of a surface group G on the circle that are totally rigid -- they are essentially isolated points in the representation space Hom(G, Homeo+(S^1))/~. These examples are interesting from many perspectives, ranging from foliation theory to the classification of connected components of representation spaces.
In this talk, I will illustrate three separate approaches to prove rigidity of these actions, including my original proof. Each one uses fundamentally different techniques, but all have a common dynamical flavor:
1. Structural stability of Anosov foliations (Ghys/Bowden, under extra hypotheses)
2. Rotation number "trace coordinates" on the representation space (Mann)
3. New "ping-pong" lemmas for surface groups (Matsumoto)
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