Periodic maximal flats are not peripheral (Q2928215)

The main result of this paper is that in a non--positively curved, locally symmetric manifold \(M\) of finite volume, no periodic maximal flat \(F\) is peripheral. By hypothesis \(M\) is covered by a simply connected non--positively curved Riemannian symmetric space with out an euclidean factor. A periodic flat is a closed locally euclidean manifold \(F\) isometrically immersed in \(M\). \(F\) is said to be maximal if and only if the dimension of \(F\) is equal to the rank of \(M\). Saying that \(F\) is not peripheral means that there exists a compact set \(K\) in \(M\) such that \(F\) cannot be homotoped outside \(K\).