Differentiable rigidity for hyperbolic toral actions (Q877481)

An action \(\alpha:\mathbb Z^k\to \text{SL}_d(\mathbb Z)\) of \(\mathbb Z^k\) by automorphisms of the \(d\)-torus is locally differentiably rigid if any \(C^{\infty}\) action whose generators are close in \(C^1\) to the generators of the action \(\alpha\) must be \(C^{\infty}\) conjugate to \(\alpha\). In this paper, a line of development developed by \textit{A. Katok} and \textit{J. Lewis} [Isr. J. Math. 75, 203--241 (1991; Zbl 0785.22012)] and \textit{A. Katok} and \textit{R. J. Spatzier} [Proc. Steklov Inst. Math. 216, 287--314 (1997; Zbl 0938.37010)], studying geometric structures attached to Anosov actions, is built on to prove the main result. This states that if some \(\alpha({\mathbf n})\) is hyperbolic, the action \(\alpha\) is genuinely higher rank (that is, has no virtually cyclic factor) and \(\alpha\) satisfies a technical condition on the spectrum of the action restricted to leaves of the coarse Lyapunov decomposition, then \(\alpha\) is locally differentiably rigid. This extends the earlier results which required that the action be generated by commuting diagonalizable matrices (semi-simplicity). The paper ends with a discussion of how the hypotheses might be weakened and possible further directions of study, including working in the \(C^r\) category and differentiable rigidity of non-semisimple actions on infranilmanifolds.