Local rigidity of affine actions of higher rank groups and lattices (Q2389211)

Let \(J\) be a semisimple Lie group with all factors of real rank at least two. Let \(\Gamma\) be a lattice in \(J\). The authors prove a very general local rigidity result about actions of \(J\) and \(\Gamma\). They show that all quasi-affine actions of \(\Gamma\) or \(J\) on a compact manifold are locally rigid. They call an action of a group \(G\) on a compact manifold \(H/\land\times M\) quasi-affine if \(H\) is a connected real algebraic group, \(\land\) is a cocompact lattice in \(H\), \(M\) is a compact Riemannian manifold, there is an action of \(G\) on \(H/\land\) by affine maps for which the projection of \(H/\land\times M\) to \(H/\land\) is equivariant and such that every element of \(G\) maps every fiber \(M\) of this projection by a Riemannian isometry to the appropriate fiber. E.g., any action of \(\Gamma\) by toral automorphisms is (quasi-)affine. More generally, given a compact Riemannian manifold \(M\) on which \(\Gamma\) acts isometrically and a torus \(\mathbb T^n\) on which \(\Gamma\) acts by automorphisms, then the diagonal action on \(\mathbb T\times M\) is quasi-affine, and hence locally rigid by the main result of the paper. The paper is the culmination of a series of papers and depends heavily on the authors' work in two recent articles [\textit{D.~Fisher} and \textit{G. A. Margulis}, Surv. Differ. Geom. 8, 191--234 (2003; Zbl 1062.22044); Invent. Math. 162, 19--80 (2005; Zbl 1076.22008)]. For the convenience of the reader the main results of those papers are recalled and explained. A considerable amount of additional work is needed to establish regularity properties of the map providing the conjugation. It involves a careful study of its behavior along dynamical foliations.