Convex projective structures on Gromov-Thurston manifolds (Q2464836)

\textit{M. Gromov} and \textit{W. Thurston} [Invent. Math. 89, 1--12 (1987; Zbl 0646.53037)] constructed, for \(n\geq 4\), examples of compact \(n\)-manifolds which admit metrics of negative curvature, with arbitrarily small pinching constants, but do not admit metrics of constant curvature. The author reviews some Gromov-Thurston examples in Section 3 of the paper. Consider the quadratic form \(\varphi(x)=x_1^2+\dots+x_n^2-\sqrt{p}x^2_{n+1}\) where \(p\) is a (positive) prime number, and \(n\geq 2\). Let \(\widetilde{\Gamma}=\Aut(\varphi)\cap GL(n+1,\mathbb{Z})\); then \(\widetilde{\Gamma}\) is a cocompact arithmetic subgroup in \(\Aut(\varphi)\cong O(n,1)\). Denote by \(H\) the Lorentzian model of the hyperbolic space \(\mathbb{H}^n\): \(\{x:\varphi(x)=-1,x_{n+1}>0\}\). Consider the linear subspace \(V=\{x\in \mathbb{R}^{n+1}:x_1=x_2=0\}\). The intersection \(V\cap H\) is a totally-geodesic codimension 2 hyperbolic subspace. The stabilizer of \(V\) in \(\widetilde{\Gamma}\) acts cocompactly on \(V\cap H\). Suppose that \(W\subset \mathbb{R}^{n+1}\) is a rational codimension 1 linear subspace containing \(V\). Then the Lorentzian (with respect to \(\varphi\)) involution \(\tau_W\) fixing \(W\) pointwise belongs to \(\text{GL}(n+1,\mathbb{Q})\). Thus the groups \(\widetilde{\Gamma}\) and \(\tau_W \widetilde{\Gamma}\tau_W\) are commensurable. Therefore, there exists a finite index subgroup \(\Gamma_W\subset \widetilde{\Gamma}\) which is normalized by \(\tau_W\). By applying this procedure to two appropriately chosen rational hyperplanes \(W^+,W^-\) passing through \(V\) the following lemma is obtained: Given a number \(m\geq 1\) there exists a subgroup \(\widehat{\Gamma}\subset \Aut(\varphi)\) commensurable to \(\widetilde{\Gamma}\), which contains a dihedral subgroup \(D_m\) fixing \(V\) pointwise. The generating involutions in \(D_m\) act as reflections. By passing to an appropriate torsion-free normal subgroup \(\Gamma\subset \widehat{\Gamma}\) we get a compact hyperbolic manifold \(M=H/\Gamma\). Let \(\overline{\Gamma}\) denote the subgroup of \(\widehat{\Gamma}\) generated by \(\Gamma\) and the dihedral subgroup \(D_m\). The group \(D_m\) acts on \(M\) isometrically with a fundamental domain \(O\) (that can be identified with the orbifold \(M/D_m=\mathbb{H}^n/\overline{\Gamma}\)), which is a manifold with corners so that the corner (which is possibly disconnected) corresponds to the hyperbolic subspace \(V\cap \mathbb{H}^n\). Then, the manifold \(M\) can be considered as obtained by gluing \(2m\) copies of \(X\). The dihedral angle at the corner is \(\pi/m\). By abusing notation the notation \(V\) is used for the corner of \(M\). The boundary of \(O\backslash V\) is the union of two codimension 1 totally-geodesic (possibly disconnected) submanifolds. Denote the closure of these manifolds by \(Y^+\), \(Y^-\). Then \(V=Y^+\cap Y^-\). The author considers the following assumption. Assumption 2. The manifold \(M\) admits an isometric action \(D_{2m}\curvearrowright M\) of a dihedral group \(D_{2m}\) which contains \(D_m\) as an index 2 subgroup and fixes \(V\). Therefore there is an isometric involution \(\sigma:O\rightarrow O\) which fixes \(V\) and interchanges \(Y^+\) and \(Y^-\). Now a new manifold (without boundary) \(M'\) can be constructed by gluing \(2m-2\) copies of \(O\). This manifold \(M'\) is obtained by subtracting two copies of \(O\) from \(M\). In the paper of Gromov and Thurston [loc. cit.] is proved that for every sufficiently large \(m\), the manifold \(M'\) admits a metric of negative sectional curvature varying in the interval \([-1+\varepsilon_m,-1]\) with \(\lim_{m\to\infty}\varepsilon_m=0\). The main goal of the present paper is to put convex projective structures on this Gromov-Thurston example. Suppose that \(\Omega\subset \mathbb{R}P^n\) is an open subset and \(\Gamma \subset PGL(n+1,\mathbb{R})\) is a subgroup acting properly discontinuously on \(\Omega \). The quotient orbifold \(Q=\Omega/\Gamma\) has a natural projective structure \(c\). The structure \(c\) is said to be (strictly) convex iff \(\Omega\) is a (strictly) convex proper subset of \(\mathbb{R}P^n\). In this case the author refers to \(Q\) as (strictly) convex projective orbifold. The main result of the paper is established in Section 7. Assume as before that the hyperbolic manifold \(M\) satisfies Assumption 2 and let \(M'\) be the Gromov-Thurston example indicated above. Theorem 7.1. For each natural number \(m\geq 8\) which is divisible by \(4\), the manifold \(M'\) admits a convex projective structure.