Coarse-geometric perspective on negatively curved manifolds and groups. (Q4552633)

To every Gromov-hyperbolic group \(\Gamma\) and every left-invariant distance functions \(\delta\) on \(\Gamma\) one can associate a flip-invariant locally finite Borel-measure \(m_\delta\) on the product \(\partial^2 \Gamma\) of the Gromov boundary of \(\Gamma\) with itself. The measure class of this measure is the class of the product of the Patterson-Sullivan measure for \(\Gamma\) which in turn is related to properties of the geodesic flow of \(\delta\). The group \(H_\delta\) of all homeomorphisms \(h\) of \(\partial \Gamma\) with the property that \(h \times h\) preserves \(m_\delta\) is a locally compact group which contains \(\Gamma\) as a cocompact lattice. It is shown that for the fundamental group \(\Gamma\) of a compact rank \(1\)-locally symmetric manifold \(X\) and every left invariant distance \(\delta\), either \(H_\delta\) is discrete and contains \(\Gamma\) as a finite index subgroup or \(\delta\) is roughly isometric to the distance function induced by a \(\Gamma\)-invariant rank \(1\)-symmetric metric on the universal covering \(\tilde X\) of \(X\). The proof of this result relies on earlier work of the author [Preprint 2000, published in Isr. J. Math. 136, 173--187 (2003; Zbl 1037.22013)]. For the entire collection see [Zbl 0987.00036].