Affine semigroups acting properly discontinuously on a hyperbolic space (Q1955782)

Let \(G\) be the group of affine transformations of \(\mathbb R^n\). A semigroup \(S\) of \(G\) may act properly discontinuously or not on \(\mathbb R^n\). In the former case, \(S\) is said to be crystallographic if there is a compact fundamental domain for the action of \(S\). The question addressed in the paper is whether or not the Zariski closure of a crystallographic affine semigroup leaving invariant a hyperbolic quadratic form is a virtually solvable group. The main result of the paper implies that the answer is ``yes'' in dimension 2. The main tool used is the notion \(X_\infty(K,S)\) of the ``set of possible directions at infinity'' for the translational part of \(S\) relative to a compact \(K\), which is a subset of the unit sphere by definition. The main theorem of the paper now asserts that in dimensions at most three, if \(S\subset G\) is an affine semigroup acting properly discontinuously on \(R^n\) and if there exists a compact \(K\) so that \(X_\infty(K,S)\) is the whole unit sphere, then the Zariski closure of \(S\) is virtually solvable. (Note that there is no hypothesis on invariant forms nor on crystallographicity.) The author states the conjecture that the density of \(X_\infty(S)\) in the unit sphere is a sufficient condition for a (semi)group acting properly discontinuously on \(\mathbb R^n\) and preserving a hyperbolic form in order to have virtually solvable Zariski closure.