On differentiable compactifications of the hyperbolic plane and algebraic actions of \(\text{SL}_2(\mathbb R)\) on surfaces (Q2494093)

The paper is devoted to a classification of the algebraic actions of \(\text{SL}(2,\mathbb R)\) on surfaces. Let \(k\) be a positive integer, possibly \(\infty\) or \(\omega\). A \(C^k\) action \(\alpha\) of \(\text{SL}(2,\mathbb R)\) on a manifold \(M\), possibly with a boundary, is said to be \textit{\(C^k\)-algebraic} if there exists a continuous linear representation \(\rho\) of \(\text{SL}(2,\mathbb R)\) on a real finite dimensional vector space \(V\) and a \(C^k\) embedding \(\Phi : M \to \mathbb P(V)\) equivariant with respect to \(\alpha\) and the projective representation \(\mathbb P(\rho)\) induced by \(\rho\) on \(\mathbb P(V)\). The author proves the following result. The analytic algebraic actions of \(\text{SL}(2,\mathbb R)\) on compact surfaces (with or without boundary) consist exactly of: the projective action (on \({\mathbb R \mathbb P}^2\)), the conformal action (on \(\mathbb S^2\)), the standard product action on \({\mathbb R \mathbb P}^1 \times {\mathbb R \mathbb P}^1\), one action on the projective plane with an open dense orbit, a countable family of actions on the Klein bottle, a countable family of actions on the torus with two open cylindric orbits and two circular orbits, a countable family of actions on the torus with four open cylindric orbits and four circular orbits, and of any subaction (i.e. union of orbits) of any one of these actions. Editorial remark (October 2007): The article had to be reprinted because the original article contained several errors.