Compact K\"ahler manifolds admitting large solvable groups of automorphisms

Let G be a group of automorphisms of a compact K\"ahler manifold X of dimension n and N(G) the subset of null-entropy elements. Suppose G admits no non-abelian free subgroup. Improving the known Tits alternative, we obtain that, up to replace G by a finite-index subgroup, either G/N(G) is a free abelian group of rank < n-1, or G/N(G) is a free abelian group of rank n-1 and X is a complex torus, or G is a free abelian group of rank n-1. If the last case occurs, X is G-equivariant birational to the quotient of an abelian variety provided that X is a projective manifold of dimension n > 2 and is not rationally connected. We also prove and use a generalization of a theorem by Fujiki and Lieberman on the structure of Aut(X).