Stability of lattices and the partition of arithmetic quotients (Q2484134)

Consider the usual action of \(\Gamma=SL_2({\mathbb Z})\) by fractional transformations on the upper half plane \(H\). The fundamental region \(D=\{| z| \geq 1, | Re(z)| \leq 1/2\}\) can be divided into two parts: the first containing the points with \(Im(z)\leq 1\) and the second containing those with \(Im(z)>1\). The image of the first part in the quotient \(\Gamma \backslash H\) is compact, while the second can be regarded as a neighbourhood of a cusp at infinity related to which the \(\Gamma\)-action is particularly simple, since only \(\Gamma\cap P\) is relevant, where \(P\) if the parabolic group of upper triangular matrices in \(SL_2({\mathbb Z})\). This decomposition into two parts is very useful in the study of the quotient \(\Gamma \backslash H\). The purpose of the present paper is to present a generalization to the study of quotients \(GL_n({\mathbb Z})\backslash X_V\) where \(X_V\) denotes the space of positive definite quadratic forms on a real vector space \(V={\mathbb R}^n\). The decomposition in the preceding example may be reinterpreted as follows: Each point \(\tau\in H\) corresponds to a lattice \(L\) in \({\mathbb C= R}^2\) and \(\tau\) is contained in the first part if and only if the lattice contains a vector \(v\in{\mathbb C}\) with \(| | v| | \leq\sqrt{volume( {\mathbb C}/L)}\). This is generalized in the following way: For each lattice \(L\) in a real vector space \(V\) one considers all points \((k,\log(volume(V/M)))\) where \(M\) runs through all sublattices of \(L\) and \(k\) denotes the rank of \(M\). The boundary of the convex hull of the set of all these points in \({\mathbb R}^2\) is called the ``profile'' of \(L\). If this profile has the simplest possible form (with only two vertices), then the lattice \(L\) is called ``semistable'', otherwise ``unstable''. The set of vertices of the profile yields a ``canonical flag'' of sublattices of the given lattice \(L\). (If \(L\) is semistable, this flag contains only \(\{0\}\) and \(L\) itself.) There is a parabolic group given as the stabilizer of the associated flag of vector subspaces of \(V\). In this way the decomposition for \(SL_2({\mathbb Z})\) acting on \(H\) is generalized to \(GL_n({\mathbb Z})\) acting on \(X_V\).