New non-arithmetic complex hyperbolic lattices (Q261518): Difference between revisions

It is well known by the work of Margulis, \textit{K. Corlette} [Ann. Math. (2) 135, No. 1, 165--182 (1992; Zbl 0768.53025)] and \textit{M. Gromov} and \textit{R. Schoen} [Publ. Math., Inst. Hautes Étud. Sci. 76, 165--246 (1992; Zbl 0896.58024)] that the only symmetric spaces of non-compact type whose isometry groups may contain non-arithmetic lattices are real and complex hyperbolic spaces. In the real hyperbolic case, a celebrated construction of hybrid manifolds by \textit{M. Gromov} and \textit{I. I. Piatetski-Shapiro} [Publ. Math., Inst. Hautes Étud. Sci. 66, 93--103 (1988; Zbl 0649.22007)] allows one to obtain infinitely many commensurability classes of non-arithmetic lattices for any dimension. In the complex hyperbolic spaces the hyperspaces have real codimension 2 which prevents us from reapplying Gromov-Piatetski-Shapiro's method. It is not known if there exist some other constructions of non-arithmetic lattices that would apply to the complex hyperbolic spaces of arbitrary dimension and the existence of such lattices in dimensions greater than 3 is a longstanding open problem. All previously known examples of non-arithmetic lattices in complex hyperbolic spaces of dimensions 2 and 3 were commensurable with the lattices constructed by \textit{E. Picard} [Ann. de l'Éc. Norm. (2) 10, 305--322 (1881; JFM 13.0389.01)], \textit{G. D. Mostow} [Pac. J. Math. 86, 171--276 (1980; Zbl 0456.22012)], and \textit{P. Deligne} and \textit{G. D. Mostow} [Publ. Math., Inst. Hautes Étud. Sci. 63, 5--89 (1986; Zbl 0615.22008)] (in fact, they fell into nine commensurability classes in dimension 2 and there is a single known example in dimension 3). The main result of the present paper is a construction of five new commensurability classes of non-arithmetic complex hyperbolic lattices in dimension 2. The method used by the authors to construct their examples is close in spirit to Mostow's original approach. They begin with some well-chosen complex hyperbolic reflection groups and show that these groups are lattices by constructing explicit fundamental domains and applying the Poincaré polyhedron theorem. This appears to be a notoriously difficult task; it is surprising, at least to the reviewer, that the authors were able to complete all the computations. The difficulty of the procedure indicates that although the method is very general it would be hard to apply it in a wider context.