Let $M$ be a geometrically finite acylindrical hyperbolic 3-manifold and let $M^*$ denote the interior of the convex core of M. We show that any geodesic plane in $M^*$ is either closed or dense, and that there are only countably many closed geodesic planes in $M^*$. These results were obtained earlier by McMullen, Mohammadi, and the second named author when M is convex cocompact.
As a corollary we obtain that when $M$ covers an arithmetic hyperbolic 3-manifold $M_0$, the topological behavior of a geodesic plane in $M^*$ is governed by that of the corresponding plane in $M_0$. We construct a counterexample of this phenomenon when $M_0$ is non-arithmetic.
Let $M$ be a convex cocompact acylindrical hyperbolic 3-manifold of infinite volume, and let $M^*$ denote the interior of the convex core of $M$. In this paper we show that any geodesic plane in $M^*$ is either closed or dense. We also show that only countably many planes are closed. These are the first rigidity theorems for planes in convex cocompact 3-manifolds of infinite volume that depend only on the topology of M.
Let $P$ be a geodesic plane in a convex cocompact, acylindrical hyperbolic 3-manifold $M$. Assume that $P^*=M^*\cap P$ is nonempty, where $M^*$ is the interior of the convex core of $M$. Does this condition imply that $P$ is either closed or dense in $M$? A positive answer would furnish an analogue of Ratner's theorem in the infinite volume setting. In arXiv:1802.03853 it is shown that $P^*$ is either closed or dense in $M^*$. Moreover, there are at most countably many planes with $P^*$ closed, and in all previously known examples, $P$ was also closed in $M$. In this note we show more exotic b…
In this paper, we study quasi post-critically finite degenerations for rational maps. We construct limits for such degenerations as geometrically finite rational maps on a finite tree of Riemann spheres. We prove the boundedness for such degenerations of hyperbolic rational maps with Sierpinski carpet Julia set and give criteria for the convergence for quasi-Blaschke products $\mathcal{QB}_d$, making progress towards the analogues of Thurston's compactness theorem for acylindrical $3$-manifold and the double limit theorem for quasi-Fuchsian groups in complex dynamics. In the appendix, we apply…
We study the problem of rigidity of closures of totally geodesic plane immersions in geometrically finite manifolds containing rank $1$ cusps. We show that the key notion of K-thick recurrence of horocycles fails generically in this setting. This property was introduced in the recent work of McMullen, Mohammadi and Oh. Nonetheless, in the setting of geometrically finite groups whose limit sets are circle packings, we derive 2 density criteria for non-closed geodesic plane immersions, and show that closed immersions give rise to surfaces with finitely generated fundamental groups. We also obtai…
We study the topological dynamics of the horocycle flow $h_\mathbb{R}$ on a geometrically infinite hyperbolic surface S. Let u be a non-periodic vector for $h_\mathbb{R}$ in T^1 S. Suppose that the half-geodesic $u(\mathbb{R}^+)$ is almost minimizing and that the injectivity radius along $u(\mathbb{R}^+)$ has a finite inferior limit $Inj(u(\mathbb{R}^+))$. We prove that the closure of $h_\mathbb{R} u$ meets the geodesic orbit along un unbounded sequence of points $g_{t_n} u$. Moreover, if $Inj(u(\mathbb{R}^+)) = 0$, the whole half-orbit $g_{\mathbb{R}^+} u$ is contained in $h_\mathbb{R} u$. Wh…
We give a finitary criterion for the convergence of measures on non-elementary geometrically finite hyperbolic orbifolds to the unique measure of maximal entropy. We give an entropy criterion controlling escape of mass to the cusps of the orbifold. Using this criterion we prove new results on the distribution of collections of closed geodesics on such orbifold, and as a corollary we prove equidistribution of closed geodesics up to a certain length in amenable regular covers of geometrically finite orbifolds.
Let $\mathcal{M}$ be a geometrically finite hyperbolic manifold. We present a very general theorem on the shrinking target problem for the geodesic flow, using its exponential mixing. This includes a strengthening of Sullivan's logarithm law for the excursion rate of the geodesic flow. More generally, we prove logarithm laws for the first hitting time for shrinking cusp neighborhoods, shrinking tubular neighborhoods of a closed geodesic, and shrinking metric balls, as well as give quantitative estimates for the time a generic geodesic spends in such shrinking targets.
Let $Γ$ be a geometrically finite discrete subgroup in $\operatorname{SO}(d+1,1)^{\circ}$ with parabolic elements. We establish exponential mixing of the geodesic flow on the unit tangent bundle $\operatorname{T}^1(Γ\backslash \mathbb{H}^{d+1})$ with respect to the Bowen-Margulis-Sullivan measure, which is the unique probability measure on $\operatorname{T}^1(Γ\backslash \mathbb{H}^{d+1})$ with maximal entropy. As an application, we obtain a resonance free region for the resolvent of the Laplacian on $Γ\backslash \mathbb{H}^{d+1}$. Our approach is to construct a coding for the geodesic flow an…
We present a quantitative isolation property of the lifts of properly immersed geodesic planes in the frame bundle of a geometrically finite hyperbolic $3$-manifold. Our estimates are polynomials in the tight areas and Bowen-Margulis-Sullivan densities of geodesic planes, with degree given by the modified critical exponents.
In this article, we prove an extreme value theorem on the limit distribution of geodesics in a geometrically finite quotient of $Γ\backslash\mathcal{T}$ a locally finite tree. Main examples of such graphs are quotients of a Bruhat-Tits tree $\mathcal{T}$ by non-cocompact discrete subgroups $Γ$ of $PGL(2,\mathbf{K})$ of a positive characteristic local field $\mathbf{K}$. We investigate, for a given time $T$, the measure of the set of $Γ$-equivalent geodesic classes which stay up to time $T$ the region of distance $d$ at most $N$ depending on $T$ from a fixed compact subset $D$ of $Γ\backslash\m…
In this paper, we study the topological behavior of elementary planes in the Apollonian orbifold $M_A$, whose limit set is the classical Apollonian gasket. The existence of these elementary planes leads to the following failure of equidistribution: there exists a sequence of closed geodesic planes in $M_A$ limiting only on a finite union of closed geodesic planes. This contrasts with other acylindrical hyperbolic 3-manifolds analyzed in [MMO1, arXiv:1802.03853, arXiv:1802.04423]. On the other hand, we show that certain rigidity still holds: the area of an elementary plane in $M_A$ is uniformly…
Let $M$ be a manifold with pinched negative sectional curvature. We show that when $M$ is geometrically finite and the geodesic flow on $T^1 M$ is topologically mixing then the set of mixing invariant measures is dense in the set $\mathscr{M}^1(T^1M)$ of invariant probability measures. This implies that the set of weak-mixing measures which are invariant by the geodesic flow is a dense $G_δ$ subset of $\mathscr{M}^1(T^1 M)$. We also show how to extend these results to manifolds with cusps or with constant negative curvature.
For a rank one Lie group G and a Zariski dense and geometrically finite subgroup $Γ$ of G, we establish equidistribution of holonomy classes about closed geodesics for the associated locally symmetric space. Our result is given in a quantitative form for real hyperbolic geometrically finite manifolds whose critical exponents are big enough. In the case when G=PSL(2, C), our results can be interpreted as the equidistribution of eigenvalues of $Γ$ in the complex plane. When $Γ$ is a lattice, this result was proved by Sarnak and Wakayama in 1999.
On geometrically finite negatively curved surfaces, we give necessary and sufficient conditions for a one-sided horocycle $(h^s u)_{s\ge 0}$ to be dense in the nonwandering set of the geodesic flow. We prove that all dense one-sided orbits $(h^su)_{s\ge 0}$ are equidistributed, extending results of [Bu] and [Scha2] where symmetric horocycles $(h^su)_{s\in\R}$ were considered.
Let X be an arbitrary hyperbolic geodesic metric space and let G be a countable non-elementary weakly acylindrical group of isometries of X. We show that the second bounded cohomology group of G with real coefficients or with coefficients in the regular representation is infinite dimensional. The result holds for any subgroup of the mapping class group of a non-exceptional surface of finite type not containing a normal subgroup which virtually split as a direct product.
We consider a locally finite (Radon) measure on $ SO^+(d,1)/ Γ$ invariant under a horospherical subgroup of $ SO^+(d,1) $ where $ Γ$ is a discrete, but not necessarily geometrically finite, subgroup. We show that whenever the measure does not observe any additional invariance properties then it must be supported on a set of points with geometrically degenerate trajectories under the corresponding contracting $ 1 $-parameter diagonalizable flow (geodesic flow).
In this paper we study the ergodic theory and thermodynamic formalism of the geodesic flow on non-compact pinched negatively curved manifolds. We consider two notions of entropy at infinity, the topological and the measure theoretic entropy at infinity. We prove that both notions coincide and we relate this quantity with the upper semicontinuity of the entropy map. This relationship was already studied in [RV] for geometrically finite manifolds; in this paper we extend such results to arbitrary pinched negatively curved manifolds. We obtain several applications to the existence and stability o…
In this paper we study the phenomenon of phase transitions for the geodesic flow on some geometrically finite negatively curved manifolds. We define a class of potentials going slowly to zero through the cusps of $M$ for which the pressure map exhibits a phase transition. By a careful choice of the metric at the cusp we construct a geometrically finite manifold for which the geometric potential (or unstable Jacobian) exhibits a phase transition. Our results apply, in particular, to the geodesic flow on an $M$-puncture sphere, for every $M\ge 3$, and a suitable choice of Riemannian metric.
We prove the equidistribution of (weighted) periodic orbits of the geodesic ow on noncompact negatively curved manifolds toward equilibrium states in the narrow topology, i.e. in the dual of bounded continuous functions. We deduce an exact asymptotic counting for periodic orbits (weighted or not), which was previously known only for geometrically nite manifolds.
We construct cross sections for the geodesic flow on the orbifolds $Γ\backslash H$ which are tailor-made for the requirements of transfer operator approaches to Maass cusp forms and Selberg zeta functions. Here, $H$ denotes the hyperbolic plane and $Γ$ is a nonuniform geometrically finite Fuchsian group (not necessarily a lattice, not necessarily arithmetic) which satisfies an additional condition of geometric nature. The construction of the cross sections is uniform, geometric, explicit and algorithmic.
As a final work to establish that frame flows for geometrically finite hyperbolic manifolds of arbitrary dimensions are exponentially mixing with respect to the Bowen-Margulis-Sullivan measure, this paper focuses on the case with cusps. To prove this, we utilize the countably infinite symbolic coding of the geodesic flow of Li-Pan and perform a frame flow version of Dolgopyat's method à la Sarkar-Winter and Tsujii-Zhang. This requires the local non-integrability condition and the non-concentration property but the challenge in the presence of cusps is that the latter holds only on a large prop…
In this paper we show that dynamical and counting results characteristic of negatively-curved Riemannian geometry, or more generally CAT(-1) or rank-one CAT(0) spaces, also hold for geometrically-finite strictly convex projective structures equipped with their Hilbert metric. More specifically, such structures admit a finite Sullivan measure; with respect to this measure, the Hilbert geodesic flow is strongly mixing, and orbits and primitive closed geodesics equidistribute, allowing us to asymptotically enumerate these objects.
Let G be the identity component of SO(n,1), acting linearly on a finite dimensional real vector space V. Consider a vector w_0 in V such that the stabilizer of w_0 is a symmetric subgroup of G or the stabilizer of the line Rw_0 is a parabolic subgroup of G. For any non-elementary discrete subgroup Gamma of G with w_0Gamma discrete, we compute an asymptotic formula for the number of points in w_0Gamma of norm at most T, provided that the Bowen-Margulis-Sullivan measure on the associated hyperbolic manifold and the Gamma skinning size of w_0 are finite. The main ergodic ingredient in our approac…
We establish the splitting lemmas (or generalized Morse lemmas) for the energy functionals of Finsler metrics on the natural Hilbert manifolds of $H^1$-curves around a critical point or a critical $\R^1$ orbit of a Finsler isometry invariant closed geodesic. They are the desired generalization on Finsler manifolds of the corresponding Gromoll-Meyer's splitting lemmas on Riemannian manifolds (\cite{GM1, GM2}). As an application we extend to Finsler manifolds a result by Grove and Tanaka \cite{GroTa78, Tan82} about the existence of infinitely many, geometrically distinct, isometry invariant clos…
Let $\mathcal{M}=Γ\backslash\mathbb{H}^{d+1}$ be a geometrically finite hyperbolic manifold with critical exponent exceeding $d/2$. We obtain a precise asymptotic expansion of the matrix coefficients for the geodesic flow in $L^2(\mathrm{T}^1(\mathcal{M}))$, with exponential error term essentially as good as the one given by the spectral gap for the Laplace operator on $L^2(\mathcal{M})$ due to Lax and Phillips. Combined with the work of Bourgain, Gamburd, and Sarnak and its generalization by Golsefidy and Varju on expanders, this implies uniform exponential mixing for congruence covers of $\m…
Let $M=X/Γ$ be a geometrically finite negatively curved manifold with fundamental group $Γ$ acting on $X$ by isometries. The purpose of this paper is to study the mixing property of the geodesic flow on $T^1M$, the asymptotic equivalent as $R\longrightarrow+\infty$ of the number of closed geodesics on $M$ of length less than $R$ and of the orbital counting function $\sharp\{γ\inΓ |\ d(o,γ.o)\le R\}$. These properties are well known when the Bowen-Margulis measure on $T^1M$ is finite. We consider here divergent Schottky groups whose Bowen-Margulis measure is infinite and ergodic, and we precise…
We study the geodesic flow of geometrically finite quotients $Ω/Γ$ of Hilbert geometries, in particular its recurrence properties. We prove that, under a geometrical assumption on the cusps, the geodesic flow is uniformly hyperbolic. Without this assumption, we provide an example of a quotient whose geodesic flow has a zero Lyapunov exponent. We make the link between the dynamics of the geodesic flow and some properties of the convex set $Ω$ and the group $Γ$. As a consequence, we get various rigidity results which extend previous results of Benoist and Guichard for compact quotients. Finally,…
We present examples of geometrically finite manifolds with pinched negative curvature, whose geodesic flow has infinite non-ergodic Bowen-Margulis measure and whose Poincaré series converges at the critical exponent $δ_Γ$. We obtain an explicit asymptotic for their orbital growth function. Namely, for any $α\in ]1, 2[ $ and any slowly varying function $L : \mathbb R\to (0, +\infty)$, we construct $N$-dimensional Hadamard manifolds $(X, g)$ of negative and pinched curvature, whose group of oriented isometries admits convergent geometrically finite subgroups $Γ$ such that, as $R\to +\infty$, $$ …
We characterize the finiteness of Gibbs measures for geodesic flows on negatively curved manifolds by several criteria, analogous to those proposed by Sarig for symbolic dynamical systems over an infinite alphabet. As an application, we recover Dal'bo-Otal-Peign{é} criterion of finiteness for the Bowen-Margulis measure on geometrically finite hyperbolic manifolds, as well as Peign{é}' examples of gemetrically infinite manifolds having a finite Bowen-Margulis measure. These criteria should be useful in the future to find more examples with finite Gibbs measures.
We give a sharp lower bound for the number of geometrically distinct contractible periodic orbits of dynamically convex Reeb flows on prequantizations of symplectic manifolds that are not aspherical. Several consequences of this result are obtained, like a new proof that every bumpy Finsler metric on $S^n$ carries at least two prime closed geodesics, multiplicity of elliptic and non-hyperbolic periodic orbits for dynamically convex contact forms with finitely many geometrically distinct contractible closed orbits and precise estimates of the number of even periodic orbits of perfect contact fo…
