The strong rigidity of locally symmetric complex manifolds of rank one and finite volume (Q1070080)

In this paper the strong rigidity theorem of Siu is extended to noncompact quotients of the unit ball in complex space of finite volume and to (singularity free coverings of) Hilbert modular surfaces. It is shown that if M admits a Kähler compactification by adding smooth hypersurfaces with normal crossings and if M is homotopically equivalent to a locally symmetric space of the above type then M is already \(\pm\) biholomorphically equivalent to this space. In the proof, one constructs a homotopy equivalence of finite energy, deformes it into a harmonic map, investigates the harmonic map and shows in particular that it is proper, and finally deduces from Siu's analysis that it actually has to be \(\pm\) biholomorphic.