What an infra-nilmanifold endomorphism really should be \dots (Q1947832)

Infra-nilmanifolds and their automorphisms play an important role in dynamics, specially for expanding maps and Anosov diffeomorphisms. In this paper it is explained that two important results in the area rely on an error in the literature, a wrong formulation of the second Bieberbach theorem for nilpotent groups in [\textit{L. Auslander}, Ann. Math. (2) 71, 579--590 (1960; Zbl 0099.25602)]. The mistake was mentioned in [\textit{K. B. Lee} and \textit{F. Raymond}, Contemp. Math. 44, 73--78 (1985; Zbl 0575.57026)], but it affected a previous paper [\textit{J. Franks}, in: Global Analysis, Proc. Sympos. Pure Math. 14, 61--93 (1970; Zbl 0207.54304)]. As it was an influential paper, this had incidence on further results in the literature, including the fact that different definitions of endomorphism of an infra-nilmanifold were used. One of the purposes of this paper is to fix the notion of endomorphism of an infra-nilmanifold (the author proposes the definition of \textit{M. W. Hirsch} [in: Global Analysis, Proc. Sympos. Pure Math. 14, 125--131 (1970; Zbl 0223.58009)]). On the other hand, it introduces the notion of affine automorphism, which seems to be more suited for the applications to dynamics. The discussion of the different notions and results is motivated with examples, counterexamples, and correct versions of theorems, with their proofs. It is a clear and well-written paper that fixes definitions and statements.