Properly discontinuous actions on Hilbert manifolds (Q487040)

The authors of this paper study properly discontinuous actions on infinite dimensional Stiefel and Grassmann manifolds. For a torsion-free group \(G\) they construct a properly discontinuous isometric action of \(H=G\times \mathbb{Z}_{p_1^{\alpha_1}}\times\dots\times \mathbb{Z}_{p_k^{\alpha_k}}\) with \(p_i\neq p_j\) for \(i\neq j\), on the real Stiefel and Grassmann manifolds of the Hilbert space \(l_2(G)\). As a consequence there are complete Hilbert manifolds of nonnegative and nonconstant sectional curvature and fundamental group \(H\). Actions of \(G\) on complex Grassmannians and the classification of infinite-dimensional homogeneous manifolds of constant curvature are also discussed.