Small \(C^1\) actions of semidirect products on compact manifolds (Q2663396)

The general subject of the paper are smooth actions of finitely generated-by-cyclic groups \(G\) on compact manifolds, and in particular of the fundamental groups \(G\) of compact 3-manifolds fibering over the circle. The main result of the paper is the following. Let \(G\) be an extension of a finitely generated group \(H\) by the integers \(\mathbb Z\), with monodromy action of \(\mathbb Z\) on \(H\) induced by conjugation; suppose that the induced action of a generator of \(\mathbb Z\) on the first cohomology \(H^1(H, \mathbb R)\) is \textit{hyperbolic}, i.e. has no eigenvalues of modulus one. Then, for any compact Riemannian manifold \(M\), all representations of \(G\) in \(\mathrm{Diff}^1(M)\) sufficiently close to the trivial representation factor through \(\mathbb Z\) (i.e., are trivial on \(H\)). This applies, for example, to the fundamental groups of fibered 3-manifolds belonging to the sol geometry, but also to many hyperbolic 3-manifolds. As the authors note, it follows from deep results of Agol and Wise that the result for the case of finite-volume hyperbolic 3-manifolds does not remain true when passing to finite-index subgroups. The main result generalizes a result of \textit{A. E. McCarthy} [Proc. Am. Math. Soc. 138, No. 4, 1395--1403 (2010; Zbl 1193.37036)] for the case of abelian-by-cyclic groups, e.g. for fibered manifolds belonging to the sol geometry; so all these groups admit no faithful, small \(C^1\)-actions on compact manifolds.