Abstract homomorphisms from locally compact groups to discrete groups

We show that every abstract homomorphism $varphi$ from a locally compact group $L$ to a graph product $G_Gamma$, endowed with the discrete topology, is either continuous or $varphi(L)$ lies in a small parabolic subgroup. In particular, every locally compact group topology on a graph product whose graph is not small is discrete. This extends earlier work by Morris-Nickolas. We also show the following. If $L$ is a locally compact group and if $G$ is a discrete group which contains no infinite torsion group and no infinitely generated abelian group, then every abstract homomorphism $varphi:Lto G$ is either continuous, or $varphi(L)$ is contained in the normalizer of a finite nontrivial subgroup of $G$. As an application we obtain results concerning the continuity of homomorphisms from locally compact groups to Artin and Coxeter groups.