Isometries of Lorentz surfaces and convergence groups (Q500249)

This paper corresponds to Chapters 1 and 3 of the author's PhD thesis [Dynamique Lorenzienne et groupes de difféomorphismes du cercle. Lyon: École normale supérieure de Lyon (PhD Thesis) (2014)]. He studies the isometry group of a globally hyperbolic spatially compact Lorentz surface. Such a group acts on the circle, and he shows that when the isometry group acts not properly, the subgroups of \(\mathrm{Diff}(\mathbb S^1)\) obtained are semi-conjugate to subgroups of finite covers of \(\mathrm{PSL}(2,\mathbb R)\) using convergence groups. Under an assumption on the conformal boundary, the author shows that we have a conjugacy in \(\mathrm{Homeo}(\mathbb S^1)\).