Translations and the holonomy of complete affine flat manifolds (Q1897745)

The holonomy of complete affine flat manifolds is studied. For instance, if \(M = M^{2n + 1}\) with odd \(n\) is such a manifold and the linear holonomy of \(M\) is conjugate to a subgroup of \(\text{SO} (n + 1,n)\) as well as Zariski dense in \(\text{SO} (n + 1, n)\) then the holonomy is torsion-free. The proofs use results of G. Margulis and properties of purely hyperbolic elements of \(\text{SO} (n+1, n)\).