Actions of large finite groups on manifolds

Abstract

In this paper, we survey some recent results on actions of finite groups on topological manifolds. Given an action of a finite group [Formula: see text] on a manifold [Formula: see text], these results provide information on the restriction of the action to a subgroup of [Formula: see text] of index bounded above by a number depending only on [Formula: see text]. Some of these results refer to the algebraic structure of the group, such as being abelian or nilpotent or admitting a generating subset of controlled size; other results refer to the geometry of the action, e.g. to the existence of fixed points, to the collection of stabilizer subgroups or to the action on cohomology.