Lefschetz properties for noncompact arithmetic ball quotients (Q2405318)

The article is concerned with the cohomology of noncompact locally symmetric spaces obtained from arithmetically defined subgroups of $\mathrm{SU}(n,1)$ -- these spaces are termed ``arithmetic ball quotients'' -- and studies the behaviour of cohomology classes under restriction to smaller dimensional submanifolds of the same kind. The main result is an interesting injectivity statement. \par To describe the main result in more detail, we fix some notation. Let $E = \mathbb{Q}(\sqrt{d})$ be an imaginary quadratic number field and let $V$ be an $E$-vector space with a hermitian form $h: V\times V \to E$. Assume that $E$ is of dimension $n+1 \geq 3$ and that $h$ is of signature $(n,1)$ at the Archimedian place. Then $\mathrm{SU}(h)$ is a linear algebraic group defined over $\mathbb{Q}$. Every arithmetic subgroup $\Gamma \subseteq \mathrm{SU}(h)(\mathbb{Q})$ acts on the associated symmetric space $\mathbb{B}$, which is biholomorphic to the unit ball in $\mathbb{C}^n$. Alternatively, $\mathbb{B}$ can be defined as the space of all complex lines in $\mathbb{C}\otimes_{E} V$ which are negative definite for $h$. The quotient \[ M = \Gamma \backslash \mathbb{B} \] is a noncompact complex manifold and, moreover, carries the structure of a quasi-projective complex variety. Now consider a subspace $W \subseteq V$ of dimension $m+1$ with the property that $h_{|W}$ has signature $(m,1)$. In the same way, the arithmetic group $\Gamma_W = \Gamma \cap \mathrm{SU}(h_{|W})(\mathbb{Q})$ gives rise to a locally symmetric space $M_{W} = \Gamma_W \backslash \mathbb{B}_W$ which admits a natural map \[ j_W : M_W \to M. \] Fix $m < n$ and assume that $\Gamma$ is an arithmetic congruence subgroup, then the main result is the following Lefschetz property: There are subspaces $W_1,\dots, W_s$ of dimension $m+1$ as above, such that the map \[ H^i(M,\mathbb{Q}) \to \bigoplus_{k=1}^s H^i(M_{W_k},\mathbb{Q}) \] obtained from the $j^*_{W_k}$ is injective for all $i \leq m-2$. Stronger results, which provide injectivity also in degree $i=m-1$, have been published by \textit{N. Bergeron} and \textit{L. Clozel} [Math. Ann. 368, No. 3--4, 1333--1358 (2017; Zbl 1385.53025)] and by the author in [Manuscr. Math. 152, No. 3--4, 443--457 (2017; Zbl 1381.11048)]. A similar result for compact locally symmetric spaces has been obtained by \textit{T. N. Venkataramana} [Compos. Math. 125, No. 2, 221--253 (2001; Zbl 0983.11027)] and the paper under review follows a similar strategy. In addition, it is necessary to work with a suitable compactification since the spaces $\Gamma \backslash \mathbb{B}$ are noncompact. The author uses the canonical smooth compactification $\overline{M}$ of $M$ (which is a resolution of singularities of the Satake-Baily-Borel compactification) and investigates the cohomology of $\overline{M}$ and the cohomology of boundary.