We introduce a natural subset of the unit tangent bundle of a convex projective manifold, the biproximal unit tangent bundle; it is closed and invariant under the geodesic flow, and we prove that the geodesic flow is topologically mixing on it whenever the manifold is irreducible. We also show that, for higher-rank, irreducible, compact convex projective manifolds, the geodesic flow is topologically mixing on each connected component of the non-wandering set.
For any rank-one convex projective manifold with a compact convex core, we prove that there exists a unique probability measure of maximal entropy on the set of unit tangent vectors whose geodesic is contained in the convex core, and that it is mixing. We use this to establish asymptotics for the number of closed geodesics. In order to construct the measure of maximal entropy, we develop a theory of Patterson--Sullivan densities for general rank-one convex projective manifolds. In particular, we establish a Hopf--Tsuji--Sullivan--Roblin dichotomy, and prove that, when it is finite, the measure…
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 prove the local mixing theorem for geodesic flows on abelian covers finite volume hyperbolic surfaces with cusps, which is a continuation of the work of Oh-Pan. We also describe applications to counting problems and the prime geodesic theorem.
Equilibrium states for geodesic flows over closed rank 1 manifolds were studied recently by Burns, Climenhaga, Fisher and Thompson. For sufficiently regular potentials, it was shown that if the singular set does not carry full pressure then the equilibrium state is unique. The main result of this paper is that these equilibrium states have the Kolmogorov property. In particular, these measures are mixing of all orders and have positive entropy. For the Bowen-Margulis measure, we go further and obtain the Bernoulli property from the K-property using classic arguments from Ornstein theory. Our a…
In this survey based on the book by the authors [BPP], we recall the Patterson-Sullivan construction of equilibrium states for the geodesic flow on negatively curved orbifolds or tree quotients, and discuss their mixing properties, emphazising the rate of mixing for (not necessarily compact) tree quotients via coding by countable (not necessarily finite) topological shifts. We give a new construction of numerous nonuniform tree lattices such that the (discrete time) geodesic flow on the tree quotient is exponentially mixing with respect to the maximal entropy measure: we construct examples who…
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 rank-one properly convex projective structures, equipped with their Hilbert metrics, admitting finite Sullivan measures built from appropriate conformal densities. In particular, this includes geometrically finite convex projective structures. More specifically, with respect to the Sullivan measure, the Hilbert geodesic flow is strongly mixing, and orbits and primitive closed geodesics equidistribute, allowing us to asymptot…
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.
Efficient approximation of geodesics is crucial for practical algorithms on manifolds. Here we introduce a class of retractions on submanifolds, induced by a foliation of the ambient manifold. They match the projective retraction to the third order and thus match the exponential map to the second order. In particular, we show that Newton retraction (NR) is always stabler than the popular approach known as oblique projection or orthographic retraction: per Kantorovich-type convergence theorems, the superlinear convergence regions of NR include those of the latter. We also show that NR always ha…
