The combinatorial formula of Gabrielov, Gelfand and Losik for the first Pontrjagin class
For a locally symmetric space , we define a compactification which we call the “geodesic compactification”. It is constructed by adding limit points in to certain geodesics in . The geodesic compactification arises in other contexts. Two general constructions of Gromov for an ideal boundary of a Riemannian manifold give for locally symmetric spaces. Moreover, has a natural group theoretic construction using the Tits building. The geodesic compactification plays two fundamental roles in...
Page 1