9600468 Candel This Americas Program award will support cooperative research between Dr. Albert Candel, University of Chicago, and Dr. Raul Quiroga Barranco of the Escuela Superior de Fisica y Matematicas, Instituto Politecnico Nacional, (IPN), in Mexico. The goal of this project is to study homomorphisms of specific topological spaces with various differential geometry properties. Specifically, the researchers are interested in foliated manifolds for which there are geometric structures either along the leaves or in the transverse direction. A compact foliated manifold with such structures can be considered an adequate candidate to extend various theorems concerning rigid geometric structures, establishing, in the process, Mostow-Margulis type rigidity results for foliations. In these considerations, the fundamental group and the stretch of a foliation will play an important role. ***
