Penn Arts & Sciences Logo

Penn Mathematics Colloquium

Wednesday, September 14, 2005 - 4:30pm

Alex Lubotzsky

Hebrew U., IAS

Location

University of Pennsylvania

DRL A6

The isometry group of a closed hyperbolic n-manifold is finite. We prove that for every n>1 and every finite group G there is an n-dimensional closed hyperbolic manifold whose isometry group is G. This resolves a longstanding problem whose low dimensional cases n=2 and n=3 were proved by Greenberg ('74) and Kojima ('88) resp. The proof is nonconstructive; it uses a 'probabilistic method', i.e. counting results from the theory of 'subgroup growth'. The talk won't assume any prior knowledge on the subject. Joint work with M. Beliopetsky.