The deficiencies of Kaehler groups

Abstract

Generalizing the theorem of Green--Lazarsfeld and Gromov, we classify Kaehler groups of deficiency at least two. As a consequence we see that there are no Kaehler groups of even and strictly positive deficiency. With the same arguments we prove that Kaehler groups that are non-Abelian and are limit groups in the sense of Sela are surface groups.

10 pages; small edits in v2; corrected a type on v3; to appear in Journal of Topology