For any $C^r$ contact Anosov flow with $r\ge 3$, we construct a scale of Hilbert spaces, which are embedded in the space of distributions on the phase space and contain all $C^r$ functions, such that the transfer operators for the flow extend to them boundedly and that the extensions are quasi-compact. Further we give explicit bounds on the essential spectral radii of the extensions in terms of the differentiability r and the hyperbolicity exponents of the flow.
This paper is about spectral properties of transfer operators for contact Anosov flows. The main result gives the essential spectral radius of the transfer operators acting on the so-called anisotropic Sobolev space exactly in terms of dynamical exponents. Also we provide a simplified proof by using the FBI transform.
Exponential decay of correlations for $\Co^{(4)}$ Contact Anosov flows is established. This implies, in particular, exponential decay of correlations for all smooth geodesic flows in strictly negative curvature.
The first half of this paper is concerned with the topology of the space $\AAA(M)$ of (not necessarily contact) Anosov vector fields on the unit tangent bundle $M$ of closed oriented hyperbolic surfaces $Σ$. We show that there are countably infinite connected components of $\AAA(M)$, each of which is not simply connected. In the second part, we study contact Anosov flows. We show in particular that the time changes of contact Anosov flows form a $C^1$-open subset of the space of the Anosov flows which leave a particular $C^\infty$ volume form invariant, if the ambiant manifold is a rational ho…
We show that the differential in positive equivariant symplectic homology or linearized contact homology vanishes for non-degenerate Reeb flows with a continuous invariant Lagrangian subbundle (e.g. Anosov Reeb flows). Several applications are given, including obstructions to the existence of these flows and abundance of periodic orbits for contact forms representing an Anosov contact structure.
We study the cohomological pressure introduced by R.Sharp (defined by using topological pressures of certain potentials of Anosov flows). In particular, we get the rigidity in the case that this pressure coincides with the metrical entropy, generalising related rigidity results of A.Katok and P. Foulon.
We show that for smooth contact Anosov flows in dimension 3, the resonant states associated to the first band of Ruelle resonances are distributions that are killed by the unstable derivative.
We provide obstructions to the existence of conformally Anosov Reeb flows on a 3-manifold that partially generalize similar obstructions to Anosov Reeb flows. In particular, we show $\mathbb{S}^3$ does not admit conformally Anosov Reeb flows. We also give a Riemannian geometric condition on a metric compatible with a contact structure implying that a Reeb field is Anosov. From this we can give curvature conditions on a metric compatible with a contact structure that implies universal tightness of the contact structure among other things.
We prove exponential decay of correlations for Hölder continuous observables with respect to any Gibbs measure for contact Anosov flows admitting Pesin sets with exponentially small tails. This is achieved by establishing strong spectral estimates for certain Ruelle transfer operators for such flows.
We discuss a metric description of the divergence of a (projectively) Anosov flow in dimension 3, in terms of its associated growth rates and give metric and contact geometric characterizations of when a projectively Anosov flow is Anosov. Then, we study the symmetries that the existence of an invariant volume form yields on the geometry of an Anosov flow, from various viewpoints of the theory of contact hyperbolas, Reeb dynamics and Liouville geometry, and give characterizations of when an Anosov flow is volume preserving in terms of those theories. We finally use our study to show that the b…
For the time-one map $f$ of a contact Anosov flow on a compact Riemann manifold $M$, satisfying a certain regularity condition, we show that given a Gibbs measure on $M$, a sufficiently large Pesin regular set $P_0$ and an arbitrary $δ\in (0,1)$, there exist positive constants $C$ and $c$ such that for any integer $n \geq 1$, the measure of the set of those $x\in M$ with $f^k(x) \notin P_0$ for at least $δn$ values of $k = 0,1, \ldots,n-1$ does not exceed $C e^{-cn}$.
For Anosov flows on compact Riemann manifolds we study the rate of decay along the flow of diameters of balls $B^s(x,\ep)$ on local stable manifolds at Lyapunov regular points $x$. We prove that this decay rate is similar for all sufficiently small values of $ε> 0$. From this and the main result in \cite{kn:St1}, we derive strong spectral estimates for Ruelle transfer operators for contact Anosov flows with Lipschitz local stable holonomy maps. These apply in particular to geodesic flows on compact locally symmetric manifolds of strictly negative curvature. As is now well known, such spectral …
Let $(M, ξ)$ be a compact contact 3-manifold and assume that there exists a contact form $α_0$ on $(M, ξ)$ whose Reeb flow is Anosov. We show this implies that every Reeb flow on $(M, ξ)$ has positive topological entropy. Our argument builds on previous work of the author (http://arxiv.org/abs/1410.3380) and recent work of Barthelmé and Fenley (http://arxiv.org/abs/1505.07999). This result combined with the work of Foulon and Hasselblatt (http://www.tufts.edu/as/math/Preprints/FoulonHasselblattLegendrian.pdf) is then used to obtain the first examples of hyperbolic contact 3-manifolds on which …
If X is a contact Anosov vector field on a smooth compact manifold M and V is a smooth function on M, it is known that the differential operator A=-X+V has some discrete spectrum called Ruelle-Pollicott resonances in specific Sobolev spaces. We show that for |Im(z)| large the eigenvalues of A are restricted to vertical bands and in the gaps between the bands, the resolvent of A is bounded uniformly with respect to |Im(z)|. In each isolated band the density of eigenvalues is given by the Weyl law. In the first band, most of the eigenvalues concentrate of the vertical line Re(z)=< D >, the space…
We show, using semiclassical measures and unstable derivatives, that a smooth vector field $X$ generating a contact Anosov flow on a $3$-dimensional manifold $\mathcal{M}$ has only finitely many Ruelle resonances in the vertical strips $\{ s\in \mathbb{C}\ |\ {\rm Re}(s)\in [-ν_{\min}+ε,-\frac{1}{2}ν_{\max}-ε]\cup [-\frac{1}{2}ν_{\min}+ε,0]\}$ for all $ε>0$, where $0<ν_{\min}\leq ν_{\max}$ are the minimal and maximal expansion rates of the flow (the first strip only makes sense if $ν_{\min}>ν_{\max}/2$). We also show polynomial bounds in $s$ for the resolvent $(-X-s)^{-1}$ as $|{\rm Im}(s)|\to…
This errata fixes a mistake in the part of Giulietti, P.; Liverani, C.; Pollicott, M. Anosov flows and dynamical zeta functions. Ann. of Math. (2) {\bf 178} (2013), no. 2, 687--773, which proves a spectral gap for contact Anosov flows with respect to the measure of maximal entropy (Section 7). However, the first part of the paper, in which it is proved that the Ruelle zeta function is meromorphic, is unaffected.
With the goal to study and better understand algebraic Anosov actions of $\mathbb R^k$, we develop a higher codimensional analogue of the contact distribution on odd dimensional manifolds, call such structure a generalized $k$-contact structure. We show that there exist an $\mathbb R^k$-action associated with this structure, afterwards, we relate this structure with the Weyl chamber actions and a few more general algebraic Anosov actions, proving that such actions admits a compatible generalized $k$-contact structure.
In this work we study strong spectral properties of Ruelle transfer operators related to a large family of Gibbs measures for contact Anosov flows. The ultimate aim is to establish exponential decay of correlations for Hölder observables with respect to a very general class of Gibbs measures. The approach invented in 1997 by Dolgopyat \cite{D1} and further developed in \cite{St2} is substantially refined here, allowing to deal with much more general situations than before, although we still restrict ourselves to the uniformly hyperbolic case. A rather general procedure is established which pro…
Pesin sets are measurable sets along which the behavior of a matrix cocycle above a measure preserving dynamical system is explicitly controlled. In uniformly hyper-bolic dynamics, we study how often points return to Pesin sets under suitable conditions on the cocycle: if it is locally constant, or if it admits invariant holonomies and is pinching and twisting, we show that the measure of points that do not return a linear number of times to Pesin sets is exponentially small. We discuss applications to the exponential mixing of contact Anosov flows, and counterexamples illustrating the necessi…
We study the Ruelle and Selberg zeta functions for $\Cs^r$ Anosov flows, $r > 2$, on a compact smooth manifold. We prove several results, the most remarkable being: (a) for $\Cs^\infty$ flows the zeta function is meromorphic on the entire complex plane; (b) for contact flows satisfying a bunching condition (e.g. geodesic flows on manifolds of negative curvature better than $\frac 19$-pinched) the zeta function has a pole at the topological entropy and is analytic in a strip to its left; (c) under the same hypotheses as in (b) we obtain sharp results on the number of periodic orbits. Our argume…
The original proof has a gap, and need extra hypothesis that the strong stable and strong unstable filiation both to be $C^1$. The argument is like the following: with the regularity, one can show that the weak-stable and weak-unstable foliation both to be $C^{1+Lip}$, and then following the same argument as in the paper one can conclude the proof. But this extra hypothesis seems implying that the flow has a contact structure. Then it will be only a result which improves the Foulon's proof on contract structure for $C^\infty$ regularity to $C^2$, not so interest.
We introduce a notion of abelian cohomology in the context of smooth flows. This is an equivalence relation which is weaker than the standard cohomology equivalence relation for flows. We develop Livshits theory for abelian cohomology over transitive Anosov flows. In particular, we prove an abelian Livshits theorem for homologically full Anosov flows. Then we apply this theorem to strengthen marked length spectrum rigidity for negatively curved surfaces. We also present an application to rigidity of contact Anosov flows. Some new results on homologically full Anosov flows are also given.
Consider the tangent bundle of a Riemannian manifold $(M,g)$ of dimension $n\geq3$ admitting a metric of negative curvature (not necessarily equal to $g$) endowed with a twisted symplectic structure defined by a closed 2-form on $M$. We consider the Hamiltonian flow generated (with respect to that symplectic structure) by the standard kinetic energy Hamiltonian, and we consider a compact regular energy level $Σ_{k}:=H^{-1}(k)$ of $H$. Suppose $Σ_{k}$ is an Anosov energy level. We prove that if $n$ is odd, then if the Hamiltonian flow restricted to $Σ_{k}$ is Anosov with $C^{1}$ weak bundles th…
We consider Anosov flows on closed 3-manifolds preserving a volume form $Ω$. Following Dyatlov and Zworski (2017) we study spaces of invariant distributions with values in the bundle of exterior forms whose wavefront set is contained in the dual of the unstable bundle. Our first result computes the dimension of these spaces in terms of the first Betti number of the manifold, the cohomology class $[ι_{X}Ω]$ (where $X$ is the infinitesimal generator of the flow) and the helicity. These dimensions coincide with the Pollicott-Ruelle resonance multiplicities under the assumption of $\textit{semisim…
We adapt to $C^r$ Anosov flows on compact manifolds a construction for $C^r$ discrete-time hyperbolic dynamics ($r>1$), obtaining anisotropic Banach or Hilbert spaces on which the resolvent of the generator of weighted transfer operators for the flow is quasi-compact. We apply this to study the ergodic integrals of the horocycle flows $h_ρ$ of $C^r$ codimension one mixing Anosov flows. In dimension three, for any suitably bunched $C^3$ contact Anosov flow with orientable strong-stable distribution, we establish power-law convergence of the ergodic average. We thereby implement the program of G…
We give a sharp polynomial bound on the number of Pollicott-Ruelle resonances. These resonances, which are complex numbers in the lower half-plane, appear in expansions of correlations for Anosov contact flows. The bounds follow the tradition of upper bounds on the number of scattering resonances and improve a recent bound of Faure-Sjöstrand. The complex scaling method used in scattering theory is replaced by an approach using exponentially weighted spaces introduced by Helffer-Sjöstrand in scattering theory and by Faure-Sjöstrand in the theory of Anosov flows.
Using deformations of foliations to contact structures as well as rigidity properties of Anosov foliations we provide infinite families of examples which show that the space of taut foliations in a given homotopy class of plane fields is in general not path connected. Similar methods also show that the space of representations of the fundamental group of a hyperbolic surface to the group of smooth diffeomorphisms of the circle with fixed Euler class is in general not path connected. As an important step along the way we resolve the question of which universally tight contact structures on Seif…
We study pairs of Engel structures on four-manifolds whose intersection has constant rank one and which define the same even contact structure, but induce different orientations on it. We establish a correspondence between such pairs of Engel structures and a class of weakly hyperbolic flows. This correspondence is analogous to the correspondence between bi-contact structures and projectively or conformally Anosov flows on three-manifolds found by Eliashberg--Thurston and by Mitsumatsu.
We define the prequantization of a symplectic Anosov diffeomorphism f:M-> M, which is a U(1) extension of the diffeomorphism f preserving an associated specific connection, and study the spectral properties of the associated transfer operator, called prequantum transfer operator. This is a model for the transfer operators associated to geodesic flows on negatively curved manifolds (or contact Anosov flows). We restrict the prequantum transfer operator to the N-th Fourier mode with respect to the U(1) action and investigate the spectral property in the limit N->infinity, regarding the transfer …