Tropicalization of group representations

Abstract

In this paper we give an interpretation to the boundary points of the compactification of the parameter space of convex projective structures on an n-manifold M. These spaces are closed semi-algebraic subsets of the variety of characters of representations of the fundamental group of M in SL_{n+1}(R). The boundary was constructed as the tropicalization of this semi-algebraic set. Here we show that the geometric interpretation for the points of the boundary can be constructed searching for a tropical analogue to an action of the group on a projective space. To do this we need to construct a tropical projective space with many invertible projective maps. We achieve this using a generalization of the Bruhat-Tits buildings for SL_{n+1} to non-archimedean fields with real surjective valuation. In the case n = 1 these objects are the real trees used by Morgan and Shalen to describe the boundary points for the Teichmuller spaces. In the general case they are contractible metric spaces with a structure of tropical projective spaces.Comment: 27 pages, 1 figure; Changes in version 2: minor changes, some references added. Changes in version 3: the paper has been updated according to the companion paper arXiv:0801.0165 v1, some typos correcte