Geometric Structures on Manifolds

The theory of geometric structures on manifolds which are locally modeled on a homogeneous space of a Lie group traces back to Charles Ehresmann in the 1930s, although many examples had been studied previously. Such locally homogeneous geometric structures are special cases of Cartan connections where the associated curvature vanishes. This theory received a big boost in the 1970s when W. Thurston put his geometrization program for 3-manifolds in this context. The subject of this book is more…