What I learned from Marco

1.Doing the leray spectral sequence is a thing Aim: Use the leray spectral sequence to to show
that if T n y S m then n < m/2.
Questions: We know what the top line looks like. We have no idea what the y-axis is. Obviously we
know the base (it has an orbifold structure) that looks like a square and is just a Rn /G for some reflection
group G
2.Example of a cohomogeneity two action such that X is rationally hyperbolic Take the
action of S 1 × S 1 y S 2 × S 2 . This is cohomogeneity two. Get an action of S 1 × S 1 y S 2 #S 2 (equivariant
connected sum) with cohomogeneity two. The quotient is a hyperbolic hexagon. This implies that S 2 #S 2
is rationally hyperbolic 1 . More generally, when the quotient space is of curvature −1 then usually X is
rationally hyperbolic.
3. Example of a homogenous space such that the geodesic cannot be continued using a group action.
3.1.Clifford translations. When the function x → d(x, φ(x)) is constant then we have that the middle
segment minimizes length so one gets that the continuation segment is a geodesic.
3.2.Example. S 3 /Zp : One has that there are p geodesics from x1 to x2 and they come from unique geodesics
from x1 to lifts of x2 in S 3 .
One should compute in S 3 , for a given geodesic from x1 to x2 , γ 0 (0), γ 0 (1).
On the group action side the only isometries that are there are lifts of group actions on S 3 /Zp , i.e.
Zp × S 3 . Here we use the fact that the connected component of the identity of the isometry group of a lie
group is G × G and the isometry group of S 3 /Zp is the normalizer of Zp × 1 modulo the isometries that act
trivially, i.e. Zp .
Thus there should only be Z/p (Right) isometries taking the lift of x1 to a the chosen lift of x2 . One
should be able to vary x2 so that none of these isometries applied to γ 0 (0) is γ 0 (1).

1 this doesn’t quite make sense because the connected sum should be an S 4 which is rationally elliptic
1