Distortion elements in group actions on surfaces

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Publication:817952

DOI10.1215/S0012-7094-06-13132-0zbMATH Open1088.37009arXivmath/0404532OpenAlexW1973694639MaRDI QIDQ817952FDOQ817952


Authors: John Franks, Michael Handel Edit this on Wikidata


Publication date: 23 March 2006

Published in: Duke Mathematical Journal (Search for Journal in Brave)

Abstract: If G is a finitely generated group with generators g1,...,gj then an infinite order element finG is a {em distortion element} of G provided displaystyleliminfnoinfty|fn|/n=0, where |fn| is the word length of fn in the generators. Let S be a closed orientable surface and let Diff(S)0 denote the identity component of the group of C1 diffeomorphisms of S. Our main result shows that if S has genus at least two and if f is a distortion element in some finitely generated subgroup of Diff(S)0, then supp(mu)subsetFix(f) for every f-invariant Borel probability measure mu. Related results are proved for S=T2 or S2. For mu a Borel probability measure on S, denote the group of C1 diffeomorphisms that preserve mu by Diffmu(S). We give several applications of our main result showing that certain groups, including a large class of higher rank lattices, admit no homomorphisms to Diffmu(S) with infinite image.


Full work available at URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/math/0404532




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