In this paper we study perturbations of constant cocycles for actions of higher rank semi-simple algebraic groups and their lattices. Roughly speaking, for ergodic actions, Zimmer's cocycle superrigidity theorems implies that the perturbed cocycle is measurably conjugate to a constant cocycle modulo a compact valued cocycle. The main point of this article is to see that a cocycle which is a continuous perturbation of a constant cocycle is actually continuously conjugate back to the original constant cocycle modulo a cocycle that is continuous and "small".
We give some applications to perturbations of standard actions of higher rank semisimple Lie groups and their lattices. Some of the results proven here are used in our proof of local rigidity for affine and quasi-affine actions of these groups.
We also improve and extend the statements and proofs of Zimmer's cocycle superrigidity.
We prove a rigidity theorem for fiber bunched matrix-valued Holder cocycles over hyperbolic homeomorphisms. More precisely, we show that two such cocycles are cohomologous if and only if they have conjugated periodic data.
We extend the recent progress on the cocycle rigidity of partially hyperbolic homogeneous abelian actions to the setting with rank 1 factors in the universal cover. The method of proof relies on the periodic cycle functional and analysis of the cycle structure, but uses a new argument to give vanishing.
We study close-to-constants quasiperiodic cocycles in $\mathbb{T} ^{d} \times G$, where $d \in \mathbb{N} ^{*} $ and $G$ is a compact Lie group, under the assumption that the rotation in the basis satisfies a Diophantine condition. We prove differentiable rigidity for such cocycles: if such a cocycle is measurably conjugate to a constant one satisfying a Diophantine condition with respect to the rotation, then it is $C^{\infty}$-conjugate to it, and the K.A.M. scheme actually produces a conjugation. We also derive a global differentiable rigidity theorem, assuming the convergence of the renorm…
We prove absolute continuity of "high entropy" hyperbolic invariant measures for smooth actions of higher rank abelian groups assuming that there are no proportional Lyapunov exponents. For actions on tori and infranilmanifolds existence of an absolutely continuous invariant measure of this kind is obtained for actions whose elements are homotopic to those of an action by hyperbolic automorphisms with no multiple or proportional Lyapunov exponents. In the latter case a form of rigidity is proved for certain natural classes of cocycles over the action.
We consider the reducibility problem of cocycles $(α,A)$ on $\T^d\times U(n)$ in Gevrey classes, where $ α$ is a Diophantine vector. We prove that, if a Gevrey cocycle is conjugated to a constant cocycle $(α,C)$ by a suitable measurable conjugacy $(0,B)$, then for almost all $C$ it can be conjugated to $(α,C)$ in the same Gevrey class, provided that $A$ is sufficiently close to a constant. If $B$ is continuous we obtain it is Gevrey smooth. We consider as well the global problem of reducibility in Gevrey classes when $d=1$.
We show that any measurable solution of the cohomological equation for a Hölder linear cocycle over a hyperbolic system coincides almost everywhere with a Hölder solution. More generally, we show that every measurable invariant conformal structure for a Hölder linear cocycle over a hyperbolic system coincides almost everywhere with a continuous invariant conformal structure. We also use the main theorem to show that a linear cocycle is conformal if none of its iterates preserve a measurable family of proper subspaces of $\mathbb{R}^{d}$. We use this to characterize closed negatively curved Rie…
We prove trivialization of the first cohomology with coefficients in smooth vector fields, for a class of $\mathbb Z^2$ parabolic actions on $(SL(2, \mathbb R)\times SL(2, \mathbb R))/Γ$, where the lattice $Γ$ is irreducible and co-compact. We also obtain a splitting construction involving first and second coboundary operators in the cohomology with coefficients in smooth vector fields.
Suppose $G$ is a higher-rank connected semisimple Lie group with finite center and without compact factors. Let $\mathbb{G}=G$ or $\mathbb{G}=G\ltimes V$, where $V$ is a finite dimensional vector space $V$. For any unitary representation $(π,\mathcal{H})$ of $\GG$, we study the twisted cohomological equation $π(a)f-λf=g$ for partially hyperbolic element $a\in \mathbb{G}$ and $λ\in U(1)$, as well as the twisted cocycle equation $π(a_1)f-λ_1f=π(a_2)g-λ_2 g$ for commuting partially hyperbolic elements $a_1,\,a_2\in \mathbb{G}$. We characterize the obstructions to solving these equations, construc…
Let $Γ$ be a weakly irreducible higher rank lattice. In this paper, we will prove various rigidity results for the $Γ$-action following a philosophy of the Zimmer program. We provide new rigidity results including local and global rigidity of the $Γ$-action when $Γ$ does not have Property (T). The new ingredient is a dynamical cocycle super-rigidity theorem. It can be thought of as the generalization of Zimmer's cocycle super-rigidity theorem since it provides almost the same consequences dynamically and algebraically. This allows us to derive various our rigidity results using dynamical super…
We study the cohomological equation for discrete horocycle maps on $SL(2, \mathbb{R})$ and $SL(2,\mathbb R)\times SL(2, \mathbb{R})$ via representation theory. Specifically, we prove Hilbert Sobolev non-tame estimates for solutions of the cohomological equation of horocycle maps in representations of $SL(2,\mathbb R)$. Our estimates improve on previous results and are sharp up to a fixed, finite loss of regularity. Moreover, they are tame on a co-dimension one subspace of $sl(2, \mathbb R)$, and we prove tame cocycle rigidity for some two-parameter discrete actions, improving on a previous res…
We prove that every smooth diffeomorphism group valued cocycle over certain abelian Anosov actions on tori (and more generally on infranilmanifolds), is a smooth coboundary on a finite cover, if the cocycle is center bunched and trivial at a fixed point. For smooth cocycles which are not trivial at a fixed point, we have smooth reduction of cocycles to constant ones, when lifted to the universal cover. These results on cocycle trivialisation apply, via the existing global rigidity results, to maximal Cartan actions by Anosov diffeomorphisms (with at least one transitive), on any compact smooth…
For any unitary representation $(π,\mathcal{H})$ of $G=SL(n,\RR)$, $n\geq 3$ without non-trivial $G$-invariant vectors, we study smooth solutions of the cohomological equation $\mathfrak{u}f=g$ where $\mathfrak{u}$ is a vector in the root space of $\mathfrak{sl}(n,\RR)$ and $g$ is a given vector in $\mathcal{H}$. We characterize the obstructions to solving the cohomological equation, construct smooth solutions of the cohomological equation and obtain tame Sobolev estimates for $f$. We also study common solutions to (the infinitesimal version of) the cocycle equation $\mathfrak{u}h=\mathfrak{v}…
Given $α$ in some set $Σ$ of total (Haar) measure in ${\bf T}={\bf R}/{\bf Z}$, and $A\in C^{\infty}({\bf T},SL(2,{\bf R}))$ which is homotopic to the identity, we prove that if the fibered rotation number of the skew-product system $(α,A):{\bf T}\times SL(2,{\bf R})\to {\bf T}\times SL(2,{\bf R})$, $(α,A)(θ,y)=(θ+α,A(θ)y)$ is diophantine with respect to $α$ and if the fibered products are uniformly bounded in the $C^0$-topology then the cocycle $(α,A)$ is $C^\infty$-reducible --that is $A(\cdot)=B(\cdot+α)A_0 B(\cdot)^{-1}$, for some $A_0\in SL(2,{\bf R})$, $B\in C^{\infty}({\bf T},SL(2,{\bf …
We prove that invariant subbundles of the Kontsevich-Zorich cocycle respect the Hodge structure. In particular, we establish a version of Deligne semisimplicity in this context. This implies that invariant subbundles must vary polynomially on affine manifolds. All results apply to tensor powers of the cocycle and this implies that the measurable and real-analytic algebraic hulls coincide. We also prove that affine manifolds parametrize Jacobians with non-trivial endomorphisms. Typically a factor has real multiplication. The tools involve curvature properties of the Hodge bundles and estimates …
For quasiperiodic Schrödinger operators with one-frequency analytic potentials, from dynamical systems side, it has been proved that the corresponding quasiperiodic Schrödinger cocycle is either rotations reducible or has positive Lyapunov exponent for all irrational frequency and almost every energy. From spectral theory side, the "Schrödinger conjecture" and the "Last's intersection spectrum conjecture" have been verified. The proofs of above results crucially depend on the analyticity of the potentials. People are curious about if the analyticity is essential for those problems, see open pr…
We prove a rigidity theorem for dominated Hölder cocycles with values on diffeomorphism groups of a compact manifold over hyperbolic homeomorphisms. More precisely, we show that if two such cocycles have equal periodic data, then they are cohomologous.
We develop a "local theory" of multidimensional quasiperiodic $\SL(2,\R)$ cocycles which are not homotopic to a constant. It describes a $C^1$-open neighborhood of cocycles of rotations and applies irrespective of arithmetic conditions on the frequency, being much more robust than the local theory of $\SL(2,\R)$ cocycles homotopic to a constant. Our analysis is centered around the notion of monotonicity with respect to some dynamical variable. For such {\it monotonic cocycles}, we obtain a sharp rigidity result, minimality of the projective action, typical nonuniform hyperbolicity, and a surpr…
Let $\mathbb{G}$ denote a higher rank $\mathbb R$-split simple Lie group of the following type: $SL(n,\mathbb R)$, $SO_o(m,m)$, $E_{6(6)}$, $E_{7(7)}$ and $E_{8(8)}$, where $m\geq 4$ and $n \geq 3$. We study the cohomological equation for discrete parabolic actions on $\mathbb G$ via representation theory. Specifically, we characterize the obstructions to solving the cohomological equation and construct smooth solutions with Sobolev estimates. We prove that global estimates of the solution are generally not tame, and our non-tame estimates in the case $\mathbb G=SL(n,\mathbb R)$ are sharp up t…
Let $M$ be a closed oriented surface and let $Ω$ be a non-exact 2-form. Suppose that the magnetic flow $ϕ$ of the pair $(g,Ω)$ is Anosov. We show that the longitudinal KAM-cocycle of $ϕ$ is a coboundary if and only the Gaussian curvature is constant and $Ω$ is a constant multiple of the area form thus extending the results in \cite{P2}. We also show infinitesimal rigidity of the action spectrum of $ϕ$ with respect to variations of $Ω$. Both results are obtained by showing that if $G:M\to\mathbb R$ is any smooth function and $ω$ is any smooth 1-form on $M$ such that $G(x)+ω_{x}(v)$ integrates t…
A deep analysis of the Lyapunov exponents, for stationary sequence of matrices going back to Furstenberg, for more general linear cocycles by Ledrappier and generalized to the context of non-linear cocycles by Avila and Viana, gives an invariance principle for invariant measures with vanishing central exponents. In this paper, we give a new criterium formulated in terms of entropy for the invariance principle and in particular, obtain a simpler proof for some of the known invariance principle results. As a byproduct, we study ergodic measures of partially hyperbolic diffeomorphisms whose cente…
This paper proves that there are no compact forms for a large class of homogeneous spaces admitting actions by higher-rank semisimple Lie groups. It builds on Zimmer's approach for studying such spaces using cocycle superrigidity. The proof involves cocycle superrigidity, measure rigidity for unipotent flows, techniques from partially hyperbolic dynamics, and the geometry and pseudo-Riemannian structure of the homogeneous space.
In this article, we prove that if a finitely generated group $G$ is not torsion then a necessary and sufficient condition for every full shift over $G$ has (continuous) cocycle superrigidity is that $G$ has one end. It is a topological version of the well known Popa's measurable cocycle superrigidity theorem. For the proof of sufficient condition, we introduce a new specification property for shifts over general groups which play a similar role as malleable property in the measurable setting. This new specification property is good enough for us to extend the method using homoclinic equivalenc…
We prove a cocycle superrigidity theorem for a large class of coinduced actions. In particular, if $Λ$ is a subgroup of a countable group $Γ$, we consider a probability measure preserving action $Λ\curvearrowright X_0$ and let $Γ\curvearrowright X$ be the coinduced action. Assume either that $Γ$ has property (T) or that $Λ$ is amenable and $Γ$ is a product of non-amenable groups. Using Popa's deformation/rigidity theory we prove $Γ\curvearrowright X$ is $\mathcal U_{fin}$-cocycle superrigid, that is any cocycle for this action to a $\mathcal U_{fin}$ (e.g. countable) group $\mathcal V$ is coho…
We show local and cocycle rigidity for $\R^k \times \Z^l$ partially hyperbolic translation actions on homogeneous spaces $\mc G/ Λ$. We consider a large class of actions whose geometric properties are more complicated than previously treated cases. It is also the first time that partially hyperbolic twisted symmetric space examples have been treated in the literature. The main new ingredient in the proof is a combination of geometric method and the theory of central extensions.
We study rigidity properties of lattices in hyperbolic n-space with n>2 and of surface groups in the context of (integrable) measure equivalence. The results for lattices in hyperbolic n-space with n>2 are generalizations of Mostow rigidity; they include a cocycle version of strong rigidity and an integrable measure equivalence classification. Despite the lack of Mostow rigidity for n=2 we show that cocompact lattices in SL(2,R) allow a similar integrable measure equivalence classification.
We study the regularity of a conjugacy $H$ between a hyperbolic toral automorphism $A$ and its smooth perturbation $f$ We show that if $H$ is weakly differentiable then it is $C^{1+Hölder}$ and, if $A$ is also weakly irreducible, then $H$ is $C^\infty$. As a part of the proof, we establish results of independent interest on Hölder continuity of a measurable conjugacy between linear cocycles over a hyperbolic system. As a corollary, we improve regularity of the conjugacy to $C^\infty$ in prior local rigidity results.
We prove an analog for integrable measurable cocycles of Pansu's differentiation theorem for Lipschitz maps between Carnot-Carathéodory spaces. This yields an alternative, ergodic theoretic proof of Pansu's quasi-isometric rigidity theorem for nilpotent groups, answers a question of Tim Austin regarding integrable measure equivalence between nilpotent groups, and gives an independent proof and strengthening of Austin's result that integrable measure equivalent nilpotent groups have bi-Lipschitz asymptotic cones. Our main tools are a nilpotent-valued cocycle ergodic theorem and a Poincaré recur…
Drimbe and Vaes proved an orbit equivalence superrigidity theorem for left-right wreath product actions in the measurable setting. We establish the counterpart result in the topological setting for continuous orbit equivalence. This gives us minimal, topologically free actions that are continuous orbit equivalence superrigid. One main ingredient for the proof is to show continuous cocycle superrigidity for certain generalized full shifts, extending our previous result with Chung.
We survey some of the progress made recently in the classification of von Neumann algebras arising from countable groups and their measure preserving actions on probability spaces. We emphasize results which provide classes of (W$^*$-superrigid) actions that can be completely recovered from their von Neumann algebras and II$_1$ factors that have a unique Cartan subalgebra. We also present cocycle superrigidity theorems and some of their applications to orbit equivalence. Finally, we discuss several recent rigidity results for von Neumann algebras associated to groups.
We take the first steps towards a better understanding of continuous orbit equivalence, i.e., topological orbit equivalence with continuous cocycles. First, we characterise continuous orbit equivalence in terms of isomorphisms of C*-crossed products preserving Cartan subalgebras. This is the topological analogue of the classical result by Singer and Feldman-Moore in the measurable setting. Secondly, we turn to continuous orbit equivalence rigidity, i.e., the question whether for certain classes of topological dynamical systems, continuous orbit equivalence implies conjugacy. We show that this …
In this paper, we prove that any analytic quasi-periodic cocycle close to constant is the Poincaré map of an analytic quasi-periodic linear system close to constant. With this local embedding theorem, we get fruitful new results. We show that the almost reducibility of an analytic quasi-periodic linear system is equivalent to the almost reducibility of its corresponding Poincaré cocycle. By the local embedding theorem and the equivalence, we transfer the recent local almost reducibility results of quasi-periodic linear systems \cite{HoY} to quasi-periodic cocycles, and the global reducibility …
We study the linear cohomological equation in the smooth category over quasi-periodic cocycles in $\mathbb{T} ^{d} \times SU(2)$. We prove that, under a full measure condition on the rotation in $\mathbb{T} ^{d}$, for a generic cocycle in an open set of cocycles, the equation admits a solution for a dense set of functions on $\mathbb{T} ^{d} \times SU(2)$ of zero average with respect to the Haar measure. This property is known as Distributional Unique Ergodicity (DUE). We then show that given such a cocycle, for a generic function no such solution exists. We thus confirm in this context a conj…
This paper proves various results concerning non-ergodic actions of locally compact groups and particularly Borel cocycles defined over such actions. The general philosophy is to reduce the study of the cocycle to the study of its restriction to each ergodic component of the action, while being careful to show that all objects arising in the analysis depend measurably on the ergodic component. This allows us to prove a version of the superrigidity theorems for cocycles defined over non-ergodic actions.
We study the problem of estimating the maximal Lyapunov exponent of dominated cocycles. In particular we are concerned with cocycles over Gibbs states on shifts of finite type for which both the function defining the cocycle and the potential defining the Gibbs state may depend on infinitely many coordinates but are still very regular. We show that when the $n$th variation of both the cocycle and the potential is $O(e^{-cn^{2}})$ for some $c>h_{\text{top}}$ then using periodic points of period less then $n$ the Lyapunov exponent can be approximated to an accuracy $O(n^{-kn})$ for some explicit…
In this paper we study topological cocycles for minimal homeomorphisms on a compact metric space. We introduce a notion of an essential range for topological cocycles with values in a locally compact group, and we show that this notion coincides with the well known topological essential range if the group is abelian. We define then a regularity condition for cocycles and prove several results on the essential ranges and the orbit closures of the skew product of regular cocycles. Furthermore we show that recurrent cocycles for a minimal rotation on a locally connected compact group are always r…
We study equivalence relations that arise from translation actions $Γ\curvearrowright G$ which are associated to dense embeddings $Γ<G$ of countable groups into second countable locally compact groups. Assuming that $G$ is simply connected and the action $Γ\curvearrowright G$ is strongly ergodic, we prove that $Γ\curvearrowright G$ is orbit equivalent to another such translation action $Λ\curvearrowright H$ if and only if there exists an isomorphism $δ:G\rightarrow H$ such that $δ(Γ)=Λ$. If $G$ is moreover a real algebraic group, then we establish analogous rigidity results for the translation…
The celebrated Livsic theorem states that given M a manifold, a Lie group G, a transitive Anosov diffeomorphism f on M and a Holder function η: M \mapsto G whose range is sufficiently close to the identity, it is sufficient for the existence of ϕ:M \mapsto G satisfying η(x) = ϕ(f(x)) ϕ(x)^{-1} that a condition -- obviously necessary -- on the cocycle generated by ηrestricted to periodic orbits is satisfied. In this paper we present a new proof of the main result. These methods allow us to treat cocycles taking values in the group of diffeomorphisms of a compact manifold. This has applications …
The Lyapunov exponents of locally constant GL(2;C)-cocycles over Bernoulli shifts depend continuously on the cocycle and on the invariant probability. The Oseledets decomposition also depends continuously on the cocycle, in measure.
Under the assumption that the X-ray transform over symmetric solenoidal 2-tensors is injective, we prove that smooth compact connected manifolds with strictly convex boundary, no conjugate points and a hyperbolic trapped set are locally marked boundary rigid.
We study the centraliser of locally compact group extensions of ergodic probability preserving transformations. New methods establishing ergodicity of group extensions are introduced, and new examples of squashable and non-coalescent group extensions are constructed. Smooth versions of some of the constructions are also given.
We study cocycles of countable groups $Γ$ of Borel automorphisms of a standard Borel space $(X, \mathcal{B})$ taking values in a locally compact second countable group $G$. We prove that for a hyperfinite group $Γ$ the subgroup of coboundaries is dense in the group of cocycles. We describe all Borel cocycles of the $2$-odometer and show that any such cocycle is cohomologous to a cocycle with values in a countable dense subgroup $H$ of $G$. We also provide a Borel version of Gottschalk-Hedlund theorem.
We construct a finitely generated subgroup of $\text{Diff}^{\infty}(\mathbb{S}^3 \times \mathbb{S}^1)$ where every element is conjugate to an isometry but such that the group action itself is far from isometric (the group has "exponential growth of derivatives"). As a corollary, one obtains a locally constant $\text{Diff}^{\infty}(\mathbb{S}^3 \times \mathbb{S}^1)$ valued cocycle over a hyperbolic dynamical system which has elliptic behavior over its periodic orbits but which preserves a measure with non-zero top Fiber Lyapunov exponent. Additionally, we provide new examples of Banach cocycles…
We prove that a locally constant $SL_{2}(\mathbb{R})$-valued cocycle over the shift generated by an irreducible collection of matrices is a continuity point for Lyapunov exponents in the $α$-Hölder topology for every $α> 0$. This gives negative answers to conjectures of Viana and the author; we pose a new conjecture to replace these conjectures. We show that an analogous continuity result also holds for $GL_{2}(\mathbb{R})$-valued cocycles that admit canonical holonomies.
In this paper, we study a local rigidity property of $\mathbb Z \ltimes_λ\mathbb R$ affine action on tori generated by an irreducible toral automorphism and a linear flow along an eigenspace. Such an action exhibits a weak version of local rigidity, i.e., any smooth perturbations close enough to an affine action is smoothly conjugate to the affine action up to proportional time change.
We single out a large class of groups ${\mathscr{M}}$ for which the following unique prime factorization result holds: if $Γ_1,\dots,Γ_n\in {\mathscr{M}}$ and $Γ_1\times\dots\timesΓ_n$ is measure equivalent to a product $Λ_1\times\dots\timesΛ_m$ of infinite icc groups, then $n \ge m$, and if $n = m$ then, after permutation of the indices, $Γ_i$ is measure equivalent to $Λ_i$, for all $1\leq i\leq n$. This provides an analogue of Monod and Shalom's theorem \cite{MS02} for groups that belong to ${\mathscr{M}}$. Class ${\mathscr{M}}$ is constructed using groups whose von Neumann algebras admit an…
In this paper, we show local smooth rigidity for higher rank ergodic nilpotent action by toral automorphisms and prove the existence of such action on any torus TN for any even N ? 6. We also give examples of smooth rigidity of actions having rank-one factors. The method is a generalization of the KAM (Kolmogorov-Arnold-Moser) iterative scheme.
We establish a strong form of local rigidity for hyperbolic automorphisms of the 3-torus with real spectrum. Namely, let $L\colon\mathbb T^3\to\mathbb T^3$ be a hyperbolic automorphism of the 3-torus with real spectrum and let $f$ be a $C^1$ small perturbation of $L$. Then $f$ is smoothly ($C^\infty$) conjugate to $L$ if and only if obstructions to $C^1$ conjugacy given by the eigenvalues at periodic points of $f$ vanish. By combining our result and a local rigidity result of Kalinin and Sadovskaya for conformal automorphisms this completes the local rigidity program for hyperbolic automorphis…
