Local rigidity of homogeneous parabolic actions: I. A model case (Q639879)

The paper deals with a weak form of local \(C^\infty\) rigidity of higher-rank abelian actions of unipotent groups on homogeneous spaces. A nice outline is given of the basic steps of the KAM/harmonic analysis method for achieving local differentiable rigidity. While several examples are described and discussed, the authors focus mainly on carrying out the basic steps for one particular example, the model mentioned in the title of the paper. The model example is a unipotent (i.e., parabolic) homogeneous action of the abelian group \({\mathbb R}^2\) on a homogeneous space \(X=G/\Gamma\), where \(G=\text{SL}(2,{\mathbb R})\times \text{SL}(2,{\mathbb R})\) and \(\Gamma\) is an irreducible cocompact lattice in \(G\). The two commuting vector fields generating the unipotent homogeneous action \(\alpha_{\mathbb{RR}}(t_1,t_2,x)\), \((t_1,t_2)\in{\mathbb R}^2\), \(x\in X\), are two commuting nilpotent elements \(U_1\) and \(U_2\) of the Lie algebra \({\mathfrak g} = {\mathfrak sl}(2,{\mathbb R})\times{\mathfrak sl}(2,{\mathbb R})\) of \(G\). The main theorem of the paper states that for every two-parameter family \(\tilde \alpha(\lambda)\) of sufficiently small perturbations of \(\alpha_{\mathbb {RR}}\) for \(\lambda\) in an small open ball \(B\) of the origin in \({\mathbb R}^2\), where each \(\tilde\alpha(\lambda)\) is generated by a pair of commuting vector fields \(\tilde U_1(\lambda)\), \(\tilde U_2(\lambda)\) satisfying some property, there exists \(\tilde \lambda \in B\setminus\{0\}\), an automorphism \(\pi\) of \({\mathbb R}^2\), and \(h\in\text{Diff}^\infty(X)\) such that \(h(\tilde \alpha(\tilde \lambda)(a,x)) = \alpha_{\mathbb {RR}}(\pi (a), h(x))\) for all \(x\in X\) and all \(a\in {\mathbb R}^2\).