Group actions on trees and the compactification of the space of classes of SO(n,1)-representations (Q1077766)

The author studies the deformations of hyperbolic n-manifolds. The study is similar to that by \textit{J. W. Morgan} and \textit{P. B. Shalen} [Ann. Math., II. Ser. 120, 401-476 (1984; Zbl 0583.57005)] where the groups \(PSL_ 2({\mathbb{R}})\), \(PSL_ 2({\mathbb{C}})\) used in the study of the deformations of hyperbolic surfaces and 3-manifolds are replaced by SO(n,1). The author describes the trees associated to the group \(SO_ K(n,1)\) \((K={\mathbb{R}},{\mathbb{C}})\), then this tree is used to compactify the classes of representations of a given group \(\Gamma\) into \(SO_{{\mathbb{R}}}(n,1)\). Some geometric information about degenerations of hyperbolic structures is obtained from these compactifications.