Induction of Geometric Actions

We prove that, in some situations, an induced action from a normal subgroup preserves a geometric structure. Combined with known geometric rigidity results, this result implies certain rigidity statements concerning the full diffeomorphism group of a manifold. It also provides many examples of actions on Lorentz manifolds. Combining these with a small number of well-known actions, we get the full list of connected, simply connected Lie groups admitting a locally faithful, orbit nonproper action by isometrics of a connected Lorentz manifold. We give an example of a connected nilpotent Lie group with no complicated action on a Lorentz manifold. We show that, if a connected Lie group has a normal closed subgroup isomorphic to a (two-dimensional) cylinder, then it admits a locally faithful, orbit nonproper action by isometrics of a connected Lorentz manifold.