Deformation of proper actions on reductive homogeneous spaces (Q425159)

Let \(G\) be a real reductive Lie group and \(H\) a closed reductive subgroup of \(G\). The author investigates the deformation of \(standard\) compact quotients of \(G/H\), that is, of quotients of \(G/H\) by discrete groups \(\Gamma \) that are uniform lattices in some closed reductive subgroup \(L\) of \(G\) acting properly and cocompactly on \(G/H\). For \(L\) of real rank 1, she proves that after a small deformation in \(G\), such a group \(\Gamma \) keeps acting properly discontinuously and cocompactly on \(G/H\). More generally, the properness of the action of any convex cocompact subgroup of \(L\) on \(G/H\) is preserved under small deformations, and this result is extended to reductive homogeneous spaces \(G/H\) over any local field. As an application, she obtains compact quotients of SO\((2n, 2)/U(n, 1)\) by Zariski-dense discrete subgroups of SO\((2n, 2)\) acting properly discontinuously.