Notes on affine isometric actions of discrete groups (Q4258060)

An affine isometric action of a group \(G\) on a Hilbert space \(H\) is an action given by \(\Pi(g)v=\pi(g)v+\gamma(g)\) for all \(g\in G\) and \(v\in H\), where \(\pi\) is a unitary representation and \(\gamma:G\to H\). This action is nontrivial when the affine action \(\Pi\) is not equivalent to the linear action \(\pi\) by a shift of coordinates in \(H\). Nontrivial actions exist when \(G\) is \(SL_2(\mathbb{R})\), \(SO(1,n)\), \(SU(1,n)\), \(SL_2(\mathbb{Q}_p)\) and these cases are studied in the article. For unimodular locally compact \(G\), it shows that the restriction of \(\Pi\) to a cocompact lattice \(\Gamma\) (meaning \(G/\Gamma\) compact) preserves irreducibility. An \(\mathbb{R}\)-tree is an inductive limit of isometric embeddings of metric trees (meaning a graph without cycle, with given lengths for edges). The restricted action of \(\Gamma\) on \(H\) can be obtained from the \(\Gamma\)-action on \(\mathbb{R}\)-trees. Using such actions, the author constructs irreducible representations of the semigroup of probabilistic measures on \(\Gamma\), and the series of representations of the groups of diffeomorphisms on Riemann surfaces enumerated by the points of the Thurston compactification of Teichmüller spaces. For the entire collection see [Zbl 0914.00060].