Nonhomogeneous locally free actions of the affine group (Q764050)

The author classifies locally free actions of the real affine group on closed orientable 3-dimensional manifolds up to conjugacies. Let GA denote the group of orientation-preserving affine transformations of the real line. Two GA-actions \(\rho_1\) and \(\rho_2\) on manifolds \(M_1\) and \(M_2\) are called \(C^\infty\)-conjugate if there exists an automorphism \(\sigma\) of \(G\) and a \(C^\infty\) diffeomorphism \(H : M_1 \to M_2\) such that \[ H(\rho_1 (p, g)) = \rho_2 (H(P), \sigma(g))\text{ for any }g \in G,\, p \in M_1. \] \textit{É. Ghys} in his doctoral thesis [Sur les actions localement libres du group affine. Thèse de 3ème cycle, Lille (1979)] proved that if a \(C^\infty\) locally free action of GA on a closed, connected, oriented 3-dimensional manifold \(M\) admits a continuous invariant volume form, then the action must be homogeneous, i.e., the action is conjugate to one of the following: Consider \(\widetilde{\mathrm{PSL}}(2,\mathbb R)\), the universal covering group of \(\mathrm{PSL}(2,\mathbb R)\). Let \(\Gamma\) be a cocompact lattice of \(\widetilde{\mathrm{PSL}}(2,\mathbb R)\) and let \(H\) be a closed subgroup of \(\widetilde{\mathrm{PSL}}(2,\mathbb R)\) isomorphic to the group of orientation-preserving affine transformations of the real line. Then the action \(\rho_\Gamma\) on \(\Gamma \setminus \widetilde{\mathrm{PSL}}(2,\mathbb R)\) given by \(\rho_\Gamma (\Gamma g, h) = \Gamma(g.h)\) is locally free and is called the standard GA action. The other classical example of a locally free GA action \(\rho_{\mathrm{solv}}\) is on the 3-dimensional solvmanifold obtained as a quotient of the following solvable 3-dimensional group Solv of affine transformations of \(\mathbb R^2\) by a cocompact lattice: \[ \mathrm{Solv} = \{h_{t,x,y} : (u, v) \mapsto (e^{-t} u + x, e^t v + y) \mid t, x, y \in \mathbb R\}. \] Here the GA is the subgroup \(\{h_{t,x,0}\mid t, x \in\mathbb R\}\). The natural question posed by \textit{É. Ghys} [Invent. Math. 82, 479--526 (1985; Zbl 0577.57010)] is whether one can remove the invariant volume hypothesis or whether one can construct a \(C^\infty\) locally free action of GA on a closed 3-dimensional manifold which is not homogeneous. This problem was open for thirty years. The author proves that there exist nonhomogeneous \(C^\infty\) locally free actions of GA on \(\Gamma \setminus \widetilde{\mathrm{PSL}}(2,\mathbb R)\) when \(\Gamma \setminus \widetilde{\mathrm{PSL}}(2,\mathbb R)\) is not a rational homology sphere. In the appendix, the author gives a proof of the unpublished result by É. Ghys which states that any \(C^\infty\) locally free actions of GA on a closed 3-dimensional manifold with solvable fundamental group is homogeneous.