Symmetries of exotic negatively curved manifolds (Q2135647)

The paper at hand investigates the following question: Given a hyperbolic manifold \(M\), how does the size of its isometry group behave, when changing the smooth structure? More precisely, let \(M\) be a hyperbolic manifold and let \(N\) be homeomorphic to \(M\). \(N\) is called an \emph{exotic structure on \(M\)}. The authors define the \emph{symmetry constant} \[ s(N)=\sup\frac{|\mathrm{Isom}(N,\rho)|}{|\mathrm{Isom}(M)|} \] where the supremum is over all Riemannian metrics \(\rho\) of \(N\). Obviously, \(s(N)\ge\frac{1}{|\mathrm{Isom}(M)|}\) and by Mostow rigidity and a classical result of Borel, \(s(N)\le1\). The main results of the paper state that the upper bound is sharp and that there cannot be a uniform lower bound: Theorem A provides the existence of a hyperbolic manifold \(M\) and an exotic structure on \(M\) with maximal symmetry constant, provided, the group of exotic spheres in dimension \(\dim(M)\) is nontrivial. If on the other hand the group of exotic spheres is nontrivial in dimension \(\dim(M)-1\) and \(d>0\) is arbitrary, Theorem B states the existence of a hyperbolic manifold \(M\) with an exotic structure on \(M\) whose symmetry constant is \(\frac 1d\). This does not imply that the lower bound for the symmetry constant is sharp and the authors ask in Question 3 if this is actually the case. The exotic structure used to achieve the upper bound is given by taking the connected sum with an exotic sphere \(\Sigma\). The exotic structure for the lower bound in Theorem B is constructed differently, by some kind of clutching: Given a hyperbolic \(M^n\) and a simple closed curve \(c\), one removes a tubular neighbourhood of \(c\) and glues in \(S^1\times D^{n-1}\) along a diffeomorphism \(f\) of \(S^1\times S^{n-2}\). \(f\) is given by the product of the identity on \(S^1\) and a diffeomorphism of \(S^{n-2}\) which clutches an exotic sphere. The proofs work by reducing Theorem A and B to the Nielsen realization problem: Given a hyperbolic manifold \(M\) of dimension at least \(3\), its isometry group is isomorphic to the group of outer isomorphisms of the fundamental group and one needs to realize subgroups of these outer isomorphisms by diffeomorphisms to prove the main results.