Semigroups in Möbius and Lorentzian geometry (Q1386688)

If \(E\) is a real Hilbert space, then a Möbius semigroup is a subsemigroup of the Möbius group \(M(\widetilde E)\) (the group generated by isometries and inversions in spheres) of \(E\) mapping a fixed Möbius ball (an open ball or an open half space) into itself. The paper under review contains a detailed analysis of the structure of Möbius semigroups. In particular it is shown that Möbius semigroups are maximal semigroups (there is no proper subsemigroup containing it). The main tool in this analysis is the Lorentz representation realizing a Möbius semigroup as a group of linear operators mapping one half of a Lorentzian cone into itself (we call this the standard Lorentz semigroup \(S^+\)). This is done by using the natural isomorphism of the Möbius group \(M(\widetilde E)\) with the Lorentz group \(O(E \oplus \mathbb R,1)\) and then identifying the image of the semigroup in the Lorentz group. The advantage of this picture is that it realizes Möbius transformations on \(E\) as linear operators on the Hilbert space \(E \oplus \mathbb R^2\). The unit group \(H\) of \(S^+\) is isomorphic to the Lorentz group \(O(E,1)\), and it is shown that \(S^+\) has a polar decomposition in the sense that \(S^+ = H \exp(C)\), where \(C\) is an explicitly described convex cone, and the map \(H \times C \to S^+, (h,X) \mapsto h \exp X\) is a homeomorphism (Theorem 9.1). In this sense \(S^+\) belongs to the class of Ol'shanskiĭ semigroups, a class of semigroups that shows up in many different contexts such as geometry, representation theory and complex analysis. The paper concludes with some uniqueness assertions on subsemigroups of \(S^+\). Furthermore it is shown how these uniqueness assertions are related to an old classification problem of C. Loewner.