Novikov Conjectures and Relative Hyperbolicity

We consider a class of relatively hyperbolic groups in the sense of Gromov and use an argument modeled after Carlsson-Pedersen to prove Novikov conjectures for these groups. This proof is related to [16,17] which dealt with arithmetic lattices in rank one symmetric spaces and some other arithmetic groups of higher rank. Here whe view the rank one lattices in this different larger context of relativve hyperbolicity which also inclues fundamental groups of pinched hyperbolic manifolds. Another large family of groups from this class is produced using combinatorial hyperbolization techniques.