Rigidity of spherical buildings and joins (Q2571737)

The author considers geometric properties of some metric spaces called CAT(1), i.e., complete metric spaces, \(\pi\)-geodesic spaces and spaces where each triangle with perimeter less than \(2\pi\) is not thicker than the corresponding triangle in the round sphere \(S^2\). The main result states that if \(X\) is a finite dimensional geodesically complete CAT(1) space, having a proper closed subset \(A\) containing with each \(x\in A\) all antipodes of \(x\), then \(X\) is a \textit{spherical join} or a \textit{building}. (The paper gives also a short overview on some definitions and results used in the paper and gives enough information on the related references.) Buildings are simplicial complexes with coverings by Coxeter complexes (called apartments) satisfying some combinatorial conditions. Buildings whose apartments are spherical (resp. Euclidean) Coxeter complexes have natural piecewise spherical (resp. Euclidean) metrics. Geometric properties of such complexes where studied by Alexandrov and, more recently, by Gromov. The author emphasizes that the above result implies also the following one that justifies the title. Let \(X\) be a non-discrete spherical building or a spherical join. If \(f:X\to Y\) is a surjective \(1\)-Lipschitz map on to a finite-dimensional geodesically complete CAT(1) space, then \(Y\) is a spherical building or a spherical join, too. Remark. It may be useful to emphasize that the manifolds considered in this paper might be of interest also in the geometric theory of PDE's as they can interpret singular solutions.