On topological twin buildings and topological split Kac-Moody groups (Q2016986)

In this well-written treatise, the authors study topological twin buildings in the sense of [\textit{L. Kramer}, Geom. Dedicata 92, 145--178 (2002; Zbl 1010.51010)]. That is, twin buildings endowed with a Hausdorff topology in which all panels (rank 1 residues) are compact and in which certain (co)projection maps are continuous. In particular, they prove the following theorem, which ``provides a rich supply of topological buildings.'' Theorem. Let \(G\) be a two-spherical simply connected split Kac-Moody group over a local field and let \(\tau\) be the Kac-Peterson topology on \(G\) (see [\textit{V. G. Kac} and \textit{D. H. Peterson}, Geometry, Prog. Math. 36, 141--166 (1983; Zbl 0578.17014)]). Then the associated twin building endowed with the quotient topology is a strong topological twin building. If the local field equals the field of real or of complex numbers, then \(G\) is connected, otherwise totally disconnected. The paper contains an abundant supply of useful results: {\parindent=5mm \begin{itemize}\item[--] a careful axiomatization of topological twin buildings, with a discussion of various alternative axioms; \item[--] an explicit construction of the Kac-Peterson topology, as well as a universal characterization thereof, and a host of properties and observations about it; \item[--] a classification of topological twin buildings whose diagram has no loops, the rank 2 residues are compact Moufang polygons and the rank 1 residues are projective lines over a local field; \item[--] a topological version of the Solomon-Tits theorem; and more. \end{itemize}} All in all, this enables one to carry the usual rich interplay between Kac-Moody groups and their twin buildings over to the topological setting, which is highly interesting as it is a natural generalization of the classical setting of semi-simple Lie groups. I expect this paper to become a standard reference for anybody who is interested in topological Kac-Moody theory.