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Everyone knows that it's difficult to compute a general fundamental domain for an arithmetic group but are there any specific examples where such domains have been calculated? I'm mostly interested in results related to orthogonal groups of lattices of type O(2, n).

I've only really been able to track down two such results:

Vinberg's algorithm computes a fundamental domain for reflective groups of type O(1,n); and Gottschling was able to compute a Minkowski reduced domain for the integral symplectic group Sp(4, Z), which can be considered of type O(2, 3).

Would the situation improve if one were to look at a restricted problem, and study fundamental domains of groups generated by p-torsion, for example?

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  • $\begingroup$ Since most interesting groups are generated by involutions, I doubt that restricting would help much... $\endgroup$
    – Igor Rivin
    Commented Jul 7, 2014 at 20:13

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Here are some more examples of fundamental domains for arithmetic groups, although not of the type $O(2,n)$ you are most interested in.

A situation in which quite something is known on fundamental domains are the Bianchi groups, i.e., the groups $PSL_2(\mathcal{O}_{\mathbb{Q}(\sqrt{-d})})$ for $d$ a positive square-free integer. These arithmetic groups act on hyperbolic space $\mathbb{H}^3$ (and therefore can be considered lattices in $SO^+(1,n)$). The first examples of fundamental domains were computed by Bianchi in 1892, whence the name. The subsequently developed technique used to compute fundamental domains in the cases of the Bianchi groups was mostly to provide an equivariant retract of hyperbolic 3-space to a 2-dimensional subcomplex on which the group acts cocompactly:

  • D. Flöge: Zur Struktur der $PSL_2$ über einigen imaginär-quadratischen Zahlringen. Math. Z. 183 (1983) 255-279
  • E.R. Mendoza: Cohomology of $PGL_2$ over imaginary quadratic integers. Bonner Mathematische Schriften, 128.

Computations of fundamental domains for Bianchi groups were also the basis for group cohomology computations of Bianchi groups done in

  • J. Schwermer and K. Vogtmann: The integral homology of $SL_2$ and $PSL_2$ of euclidean imaginary quadratic integers. Comment. Math. Helv. 58 (1983) 573-598.

Several algorithms have been described for computing the fundamental domain for Bianchi groups. You can have a look at the thesis of A. Rahm in which an algorithm is described which is also implemented using Pari/GP. This allows to do a couple of computations of fundamental domains for Bianchi groups:

  • A. Rahm and M. Fuchs. JPAA 215 (2011) 1443-1472
  • A. Rahm. LMS Journal of Computation and Mathematics 16 (2013), 344-365.

Note that only finitely many of the Bianchi groups are generated by reflections (M. Belolipetsky and J. McLeod: Reflective and quasi-reflective Bianchi groups. arXiv:1210.2759), and so Vinberg's algorithm does not apply to most Bianchi groups.

The technique of retraction onto a nice subcomplex on which the group acts cocompactly has also been used by Soulé (C. Soulé: The cohomology of $SL_3(\mathbb{Z})$. Topology 17 (1978) 1-22). This technique has subsequently been improved so that today it is possible to compute fundamental domains for $SL_n(\mathbb{Z})$ for $n\leq 8$, see the works of Elbaz-Vincent, Gangl, Soulé and others.

For the symplectic group $Sp_4(\mathbb{Z})$, you may also be interested in the paper A. Brownstein and R. Lee: Cohomology of the symplectic group $Sp_4(\mathbb{Z})$ I: the odd torsion case. Transactions AMS 334 (1992) 575-596. They do not compute a fundamental domain, but the relation between the $Sp_4(\mathbb{Z})$-quotient and the moduli space of genus $2$ surfaces might be interesting anyway. In a similar direction, for Hilbert modular groups, i.e., $SL_2(\mathcal{O}_{\mathbb{Q}(\sqrt{d})})$ for $d$ a positive square-free integer, a lot is known about the quotients $SL_2(\mathcal{O}_{\mathbb{Q}(\sqrt{d})})\backslash\mathbb{H}^2\times\mathbb{H}^2$ because these quotients have the structure of complex surfaces. There are several papers of Hirzebruch about this topic. This does not give precise information about the fundamental domain inside $\mathbb{H}^2\times\mathbb{H}^2$, but it does provide some information on the group action, the quotient, group cohomology etc. Of course, this can be generalized to other types of groups, but I know nothing about Shimura-varieties, so I cannot say anything about that...

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