Infinitesimal rigidity for hyperbolic actions (Q1898056)

This paper is well-written and may be interesting even for nonexperts. Let \(\Gamma\) be a finitely generated group, \(M\) a compact manifold and \(\varphi : \Gamma \times M \to M\) a \(C^1\) action of \(\Gamma\) on \(M\). A point \(x \in M\) is periodic for \(\varphi\) if the orbit \(\Gamma x\) is finite. The purpose of this paper is to give a short proof of the infinitesimal rigidity of a hyperbolic group action, whenever the periodic points are dense and the group satisfies a vanishing cohomology condition. Applying this result to a \(C^\infty\) action \(\varphi\), the author obtains the \(C^\infty\) infinitesimal rigidity for an affine action of a higher rank lattice on the torus \(T^n\). This generalizes previous results of \textit{J. Lewis} [Trans. Am. Math. Soc. 324, 421-445 (1991; Zbl 0726.57028)] and \textit{M. Pollicott} [Preprint 1993].