Maximal representations of complex hyperbolic lattices in SU(m,n)

Abstract

Let $\Gamma$ denote a lattice in $SU(1,p)$, with $p$ greater than 1. We show that there exists no Zariski dense maximal representation with target $SU(m,n)$ if $n>m>1$. The proof is geometric and is based on the study of the rigidity properties of the geometry whose points are isotropic $m$-subspaces of a complex vector space $V$ endowed with a Hermitian metric $h$ of signature $(m,n)$ and whose lines correspond to the $2m$ dimensional subspaces of $V$ on which the restriction of $h$ has signature $(m,m)$.