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In the early 1980's Margulis startled the world by showing the existence of proper affine actions of free groups on 3-space, answering a provocative and suggestive question Milnor posed in 1977. In this paper we discuss the historical background motivating this question, recent progress on this subject, and future directions inspired by this discovery., Comment: 74 pages, 8 figures. Solicited for: Dynamics, Geometry, Number Theory: the Impact of Margulis on Modern Mathematics

Let $\mathbf{E}$ be a flat Lorentzian space of signature $(2, 1)$. A Margulis space-time is a noncompact complete flat Lorentzian $3$-manifold $\mathbf{E}/\Gamma$ with a free holonomy group $\Gamma$ of rank $\mathbf{g}, \mathbf{g} \geq 2$. We consider the case when $\Gamma$ contains a parabolic element. We obtain a characterization of proper $\Gamma$-actions in terms of Margulis and Drumm-Charette invariants. We show that $\mathbf{E}/\Gamma$ is homeomorphic to the interior of a compact handlebody of genus $\mathbf{g}$ generalizing our earlier result. Also, we obtain a bordification of the Margulis space-time with parabolics by adding a real projective surface at infinity giving us a compactification as a manifold relative to parabolic end neighborhoods. Our method is to estimate the translational parts of the affine transformation group and use some $3$-manifold topology., Comment: 72 pages, 8 figures. We simplified the cusp forms and consequently some propositions in the previous version

Bisectors are equidistant hypersurfaces between two points and are basic objects in a metric geometry. They play an important part in understanding the action of subgroups of isometries on a metric space. In many metric geometries (spherical, Euclidean, hyperbolic, complex hyperbolic, to name a few) bisectors do not uniquely determine a pair of points, in the following sense\,: completely different sets of points share a common bisector. The above examples of this non-uniqueness are all rank $1$ symmetric spaces. However, as we show in this paper, bisectors in the usual $L^2$ metric are such for a unique pair of points in the rank $2$ geometry $\mathbb{H}^2 \times\mathbb{H}^2$., Comment: 12 pages, 3 figures

A Margulis spacetime is a complete flat Lorentzian 3-manifold M with free fundamental group. Associated to M is a noncompact complete hyperbolic surface S homotopy-equivalent to M. The purpose of this paper is to classify Margulis spacetimes when S is homeomorphic to a one-holed torus. We show that every such M decomposes into polyhedra bounded by crooked planes, corresponding to an ideal triangulation of S. This paper classifies and analyzes the structure of crooked ideal triangles, which play the same role for Margulis spacetimes as ideal triangles play for hyperbolic surfaces. This extends our previous work on affine deformations of three-holed sphere and two-holed cross surfaces., Comment: 47 pages, 5 figures

We develop the Lorentzian geometry of a crooked halfspace in 2+1-dimensional Minkowski space. We calculate the affine, conformal and isometric automorphism groups of a crooked halfspace, and discuss its stratification into orbit types, giving an explicit slice for the action of the automorphism group. The set of parallelism classes of timelike lines, or particles, in a crooked halfspace is a geodesic halfplane in the hyperbolic plane. Every point in an open crooked halfspace lies on a particle. The correspondence between crooked halfspaces and halfplanes in hyperbolic 2-space preserves the partial order defined by inclusion, and the involution defined by complementarity. We find conditions for when a particle lies completely in a crooked half space. We revisit the disjointness criterion for crooked planes developed by Drumm and Goldman in terms of the semigroup of translations preserving a crooked halfspace. These ideas are then applied to describe foliations of Minkowski space by crooked planes., Comment: 37 pages, 9 figures; to appear in L'Enseignement Mathematique

The following are notes on the geometry of the bidisk. In particular, we examine the properties of equidistant surfaces in the bidisk., Comment: 12 pages, 4 figures. Accepted for publication in Geometriae Dedicata

A Margulis spacetime is a complete affine 3-manifold M with nonsolvable fundamental group. Associated to every Margulis spacetime is a noncompact complete hyperbolic surface S. We show that every Margulis spacetime is orientable, even though S may be nonorientable. We classify Margulis spacetimes when S is homeomorphic to a two-holed cross-surface, that is, the complement of two disjoint discs in the real projective plane. We show that every such manifold is homeomorphic to a solid handlebody of genus two, and admits a fundamental polyhedron bounded by crooked planes. Furthermore, the deformation space is a bundle of convex quadrilateral cones over the space of marked hyperbolic structures. The sides of each quadrilateral cone are defined by invariants of the two boundary components and the two orientation-reversing simple curves. The two-holed cross-surface, together with the three-holed sphere, are the only topologies for which the deformation space of complete affine structures is finite-sided., Comment: 29 pages, 8 figures. Accepted for publication in the Journal of Topology

Associated to every complete affine 3-manifold M with nonsolvable fundamental group is a noncompact hyperbolic surface S. We classify such complete affine structures when Sigma is homeomorphic to a three-holed sphere. In particular, for every such complete hyperbolic surface Sigma, the deformation space identifies with two opposite octants in R^3. Furthermore every M admits a fundamental polyhedron bounded by crooked planes. Therefore M is homeomorphic to an open solid handlebody of genus two. As an explicit application of this theory, we construct proper affine deformations of an arithmetic Fuchsian group inside Sp(4,Z)., Comment: 30 pages, 7 figures

This paper applies the authors' forthcoming work, "Affine deformations of a three-holed sphere" in Lorentzian geometry to prove a result in hyperbolic geometry. Namely, an infinitesimal deformation of a hyperbolic structure of a three-holed sphere which infinitesimally lengthens the three boundary components infinitesimally lengthens every closed geodesic. The proof interprets the derivative of the geodesic length function as the Margulis invariant (signed marked Lorentzian length spectrum) of the corresponding affine deformation. The aforementioned results imply that the affine deformation is proper, and hence by Margulis's Opposite Sign Lemma, every closed geodesic infinitesimmaly lengthens., Comment: 10 pages, no figures, to appear in the Proceedings of the 2008 Ahlfors-Bers Colloquium

The Einstein universe is the conformal compactification of Minkowski space. It also arises as the ideal boundary of anti-de Sitter space. The purpose of this article is to develop the synthetic geometry of the Einstein universe in terms of its homogeneous submanifolds and causal structure, with particular emphasis on dimension $2 + 1$, in which there is a rich interplay with symplectic geometry., Comment: 56 pages, 6 figures

The Margulis invariant is a function defined on a group of Lorentzian transformations $G$ acting on Minkowski space $\R^{2,1}$, that contains no elliptic elements. The spectrum of $G$ is the sequence of values of the Margulis invariant for all its elements. If the underlying linear group of $G$ is fixed, Drumm and Goldman proved that the spectrum defines the translational part completely. In this note, we strengthen this result by showing that isospectrality holds for any free product of cyclic groups of given rank, up to conjugation in the group of affine transformations of $R^{2,1}$, as long as it is non-radiant and that its linear part is discrete and non-elementary. In particular, isospectrality holds when the linear part is a Schottky group., Comment: 1 figure

We consider the region of closed timelike curves (CTC's) in three-dimensional flat Lorentz spacetimes. The interest in this global geometrical feature goes beyond the purely mathematical. Such spacetimes may be considered lower-dimensional toy models of sourceless Einstein gravity or cosmology. In particular, our interest in this note will be to find the set free of CTC's for $E/<\gamma>$, where $E$ is modeled on Minkowski space and $\gamma$ is a Poincar\'e transformation. We describe the set free of CTC's where $\gamma$ is hyperbolic, parabolic and elliptic., Comment: New version: some typos fixed and new comment after Proposition 4.1