Discrete subgroups of PU(2,1) with large critical exponents

Mon Sep 26, 2022 4:00 p.m.—5:00 p.m.
Exterior of Sheffield-Sterling-Strathcona Hall featuring a stone carving of Yale's coat of arms and motto

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Seminar: 
Group Actions, Geometry and Dynamics

Event time: 
Monday, September 26, 2022 - 4:00pm

Location: 
LOM206

Speaker: 
Subhadip Dey

Speaker affiliation: 
Yale

Event description: 
Let Γ be a discrete subgroup of PU(2,1), the isometry group of the complex-hyperbolic space CH² of (complex) dimension two. Under a suitable normalization of the Riemannian metric of CH², the critical exponent δ(Γ) of Γ, when Γ is a lattice, is 4. In this talk, we discuss an example of a sequence (Γₙ) of discrete subgroups of PU(2,1) such that, for all n∈N, δ(Γₙ) < 4, but δ(Γₙ) → 4, as n → ∞. This example shows that Corlette’s gap theorem on critical exponents of discrete isometry groups of the quaternionic-hyperbolic spaces does not hold for CH². This talk is based on joint work with Beibei Liu.