Mostow's lattices and cone metrics on the sphere (Q487177)

The paper under review contains the main results of the first author's thesis where he explicitely constructed fundamental domains for nine different lattices in \textbf{PU}\((1,2)\). \textit{W. P. Thurston} in [Geom. Topol. Monogr. 1, 511--549 (1998; Zbl 0931.57010)] described how to interpret the quotient of the complex hyperbolic space by a Deligne-Mostow lattice as the moduli space of flat structures on spheres with prescribed (and explicit) cone singularities. Later the second author in [Acta Math. 196, No. 1, 1--64 (2006; Zbl 1100.57017)] exploited this idea to construct a fundamental polyhedron for Livne's lattices. The same approach is carried out here for the other 9 lattices mentioned above. The 6 vertices of the obtained polyhedra correspond to cone structures in which some cone points coalesce and the codimension one faces are contained in bisectors between points in the orbits of the vertices. Interesting features of this construction are the fact that, as opposed to most of the previous treatments, no computer is needed in the proof, and the fact that it gives a unified construction for groups previously treated with different techniques. The authors also carefully describe the combinatorial structure of the fundamental polyhedron, and deduce presentations for the lattices.