As shown by Masur in 80s, for any translation surface there exists a periodic geodesic of bounded length, the directions of periodic geodesics are dense in the unit circle, and the number of cylinders of periodic geodesics of length at most T admits upper and lower quadratic estimates. The main goal of this paper is to generalize the above results, with special interest in obtaining effective estimates. In addition, we apply results of Eskin and Masur to establish some properties of periodic geodesics on generic translation surfaces.
We show that generic infinite group extensions of geodesic flows on square tiled translation surfaces are ergodic in almost every direction, subject to certain natural constraints. Recently K. Frcaczek and C. Ulcigrai have shown that certain concrete staircases, covers of square-tiled surfaces, are not ergodic in almost every direction. In contrast we show the almost sure ergodicity of other concrete staircases. An appendix provides a combinatorial approach for the study of square-tiled surfaces.
We study the symmetries and geodesics of an infinite translation surface which arises as a limit of translation surfaces built from regular polygons, studied by Veech. We find the affine symmetry group of this infinite translation surface, and we show that this surface admits a deformation into other surfaces with topologically equivalent affine symmetries. The geodesics on these new surfaces are combinatorially the same as the geodesics on the original.
We consider the geodesic flow of a compact connected rank 1 surface. We prove a formula for the topological pressure as the exponential growth rate of rank 1 periodic geodesics generalizing a previous result of K. Gelfert and B. Schapira [12].
We consider circles on a translation surface $X$, consisting of points joined to a common center point by a geodesic of length $R$. We show that as $R \to \infty$ these circles distribute to a measure on $X$ which is equivalent to the area. In the last section we consider analogous results for closed geodesics.
In this article, we give a growth rate about the number of periodic orbits in the Franks type theorem obtained by the authors \cite{LWY}. As applications, we prove the following two results: there exist infinitely many distinct non-contractible closed geodesics on $\mathbb{R}P^2$ endowed with a Riemannian metric such that its Gaussian curvature is positive, moreover, the number of non-contractible closed geodesics of length $\leq l$ grows at least like $l^2$; and there exist either two or infinitely many distinct non-contractible closed geodesics on Finsler $\mathbb{R}P^2$ with reversibility $…
We study the recurrence and ergodicity for the billiard on noncompact polygonal surfaces with a free, cocompact action of $\Z$ or $\Z^2$. In the $\Z$-periodic case, we establish criteria for recurrence. In the more difficult $\Z^2$-periodic case, we establish some general results. For a particular family of $\Z^2$-periodic polygonal surfaces, known in the physics literature as the wind-tree model, assuming certain restrictions of geometric nature, we obtain the ergodic decomposition of directional billiard dynamics for a dense, countable set of directions. This is a consequence of our results …
The space of $k$-jets of $n$ real function of one real variable $x$ admits the structure of a Carnot group, which then has an associated Hamiltonian geodesic flow. As in any Hamiltonian flow, a natural question is the existence of periodic solutions. Does the space of $k$-jets have periodic geodesics? This study will demonstrate the integrability of subRiemannian geodesic flow, characterize and classify the subRiemannian geodesics in the space of $k$-jets, and show that they are never periodic.
We establish the background for the study of geodesics on noncompact polygonal surfaces. For illustration, we study the recurrence of geodesics on $Z$-periodic polygonal surfaces. We prove, in particular, that almost all geodesics on a topologically typical $Z$-periodic surface with boundary are recurrent.
Consider a component Q of a stratum in the moduli space of area one abelian differentials on a surface of genus g. Call a property P for periodic orbits of the Teichmueller flow typical if the growth rate of orbits with this property is maximal. Typical are: The logarithms of the eigenvalues of the symplectic matrix defined by the orbit are arbitrarily close to the Lyapunov exponents of Q, and its trace field is a totally real splitting field of degree g over Q. If g>2 then periodic orbits whose SL(2,R)-orbit closure equals Q are typical. We also show that Q contains only finitely many algebra…
We show that on any translation surface, if a regular point is contained in a simple closed geodesic, then it is contained in infinitely many simple closed geodesics, whose directions are dense in the unit circle. Moreover, the set of points that are not contained in any simple closed geodesic is finite. We also construct explicit examples showing that such points exist. For a surface in any hyperelliptic component, we show that this finite exceptional set is actually empty. The proofs of our results use Apisa's classifications of periodic points and of $\GL(2,\R)$ orbit closures in hyperellip…
For a Z-cover of a translation surface, which is a lattice surface, and which admits infinite strips, we prove that almost every direction for the straightline flow is ergodic.
Continuing the work in \cite{ergodic-infinite}, we show that within each stratum of translation surfaces, there is a residual set of surfaces for which the geodesic flow in almost every direction is ergodic for almost-every periodic group extension produced using a technique referred to as \emph{cuts}.
We study the dynamics of magnetic flows on Heisenberg groups. Let $H$ denote the three-dimensional simply connected Heisenberg Lie group endowed with a left-invariant Riemannian metric and an exact, left-invariant magnetic field. Let $Γ$ be a lattice subgroup of $H,$ so that $Γ\backslash H$ is a closed nilmanifold. We first find an explicit description of magnetic geodesics on $H$, then determine all closed magnetic geodesics and their lengths for $Γ\backslash H$. We then consider two applications of these results: the density of periodic magnetic geodesics and marked magnetic length spectrum …
The goal of this paper is to study periodic geodesics for sub-Riemannian metrics on a contact 3D-manifold.We develop two rather independent subjects:1) The existence of closed geodesics spiraling around periodic Reeb orbits for a generic metric.2) The precise study of the periodic geodesics for a right invariant metric on a quotient of SL2(R)
We study translation covers of several triply periodic polyhedral surfaces that are intrinsically Platonic. We describe their affine symmetry groups and compute the quadratic asymptotics for counting saddle connections and cylinders, including the count of cylinders weighted by area. The mathematical study of triply periodic surfaces was initiated by Novikov, motivated by the study of electron transport. The surfaces we consider are of particular interest as they admit several different explicit geometric and algebraic descriptions, as described, for example, in the second author's thesis.
For strong exact magnetic fields the action functional (i.e., the length plus the linear magnetic term) is not bounded from below on the space of closed contractible curves and the lower estimates for critical levels are derived by using the principle of throwing out cycles. It is proved that for almost every energy level the principle of throwing out cycles gives periodic magnetic geodesics on the critical levels defined by the "thrown out" cycles.
We completely integrate the magnetic geodesic flow on a flat two-torus with the magnetic field $F = \cos (x) dx \wedge dy$ and describe all contractible periodic magnetic geodesics. It is shown that there are no such geodesics for energy $E \geq 1/2$, for $E< 1/2$ simple periodic magnetic geodesics form two $S^1$-families for which the (fixed energy) action functional is positive and therefore there are no periodic magnetic geodesics for which the action functional is negative.
In this paper, we establish the existence of periodic orbits of a twisted geodesic flow on all low energy levels and in all dimensions whenever the magnetic field form is symplectic and spherically rational. This is a consequence of a more general theorem concerning periodic orbits of autonomous Hamiltonian flows near Morse-Bott non-degenerate, symplectic extrema. Namely, we show that all energy levels near such extrema carry periodic orbits, provided that the ambient manifold meets certain topological requirements. This result is a partial generalization of the Weinstein-Moser theorem. The pr…
The author shows that equicontinuous geodesic flows on surfaces are periodic. A similar result for flows on 3-manifolds is also proven. The idea of the proof is to show that the return map is recurrent and therefore periodic.
We study a diophantine property for translation surfaces, defined in term of saddle connections and inspired by the classical theorem of Khinchin. We prove that the same dichotomy holds as in Khinchin' result, then we deduce a sharp estimation on how fast the typical Teichmuller geodesic wanders towards infinity in the moduli space of translation surfaces. Finally we prove some stronger result in genus one.
Dynamical systems on an infinite translation surface with the lattice property are studied. The geodesic flow on this surface is found to be recurrent in all but countably many rational directions. Hyperbolic elements of the affine automorphism group are found to be nonrecurrent, and a precise formula regarding their action on cylinders is proven. A deformation of the surface in the space of translation surfaces is found, which "behaves nicely" with the geodesic flow and action of the affine automorphism group.
We survey some results on the existence (and non-existence) of periodic Reeb orbits on contact manifolds, both in the open and closed case. We place these statements in the context of Finsler geometry by including a proof of the folklore theorem that the Finsler geodesic flow can be interpreted as a Reeb flow. As a mild extension of previous results we present existence statements on periodic Reeb orbits on contact manifolds with suitable supporting open books.
We expand the cross section of the geodesic flow in the tangent bundle of the modular surface given by Series to produce another section whose return map under the geodesic flow is a double cover of the natural extension of the Farey map. We use this cross section to extend the correspondence between the closed geodesics on the modular surface and the periodic points of the Gauss map to include the periodic points of the Farey map. Then, analogous to the work of Pollicott, we prove an equidistribution result for the periodic points of the Farey map when they are ordered according to the length…
We give a criterion which allows to prove non-ergodicity for certain infinite periodic billiards and directional flows on Z-periodic translation surfaces. Our criterion applies in particular to a billiard in an infinite band with periodically spaced vertical barriers and to the Ehrenfest wind-tree model, which is a planar billiard with a $Z^2$-periodic array of rectangular obstacles. We prove that, in these two examples, both for a full measure set of parameters of the billiard tables and for tables with rational parameters, for almost every direction the corresponding billiard flow is not erg…
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.
A classical result about minimal geodesics on R^2 with Z^2 periodic metric that goes back to H.M. Morse asserts that a minimal geodesic that is asymptotic to a periodic minimal geodesic cannot intersect any periodic minimal geodesic of the same period. This paper treats a similar theorem for nonparametric minimizing hypersurfaces without selfintersections -- as were studied by J. Moser, V. Bangert, P.H. Rabinowitz, E. Stredulinsky and others.
We analyze the cutting sequences associated to geodesic flow on a large class of translation surfaces, including Bouw-Moller surfaces. We give a combinatorial rule that relates a cutting sequence corresponding to a given trajectory, to the cutting sequence corresponding to the image of that trajectory under the parabolic element of the Veech group. This extends previous work for regular polygon surfaces to a larger class of translation surfaces. We find that the combinatorial rule is the same as for regular polygon surfaces in about half of the cases, and different in the other half.
Algebraically periodic directions on translation surfaces were introduced by Calta in her study of genus two translation surfaces. We say that a translation surface with three or more algebraically periodic directions is an algebraically periodic surface. We show that for an algebraically periodic surface the slopes of the algebraically periodic directions are given by a number field which we call the periodic direction field. We show that translation surfaces with pseudo-Anosov automorphisms provide examples. In this case the periodic direction field is the holonomy field. We show that every …
We compute the asymptotics, as R tends to infinity, of the number of closed geodesics in Moduli space of length at most R, or equivalently the number of pseudo-Anosov elements of the mapping class group of translation length at most R.
We give examples of rank one compact surfaces on which there exist recurrent geodesics that cannot be shadowed by periodic geodesics. We build rank one compact surfaces such that ergodic measures on the unit tangent bundle of the surface are not dense in the set of probability measures invariant by the geodesic flow. Finally, we give examples of complete rank one surfaces for which the non wandering set of the geodesic flow is connected, the periodic orbits are dense in that set, yet the geodesic flow is not transitive in restriction to its non wandering set.
We construct a template with two ribbons that describes the topology of all periodic orbits of the geodesic flow on the unit tangent bundle to any sphere with three cone points with hyperbolic metric. The construction relies on the existence of a particular coding with two letters for the geodesics on these orbifolds.
The description of almost periodic or quasiperiodic structures has a long tradition in mathematical physics, in particular since the discovery of quasicrystals in the early 80's. Frequently, the modelling of such structures leads to different types of dynamical systems which include, depending on the concept of quasiperiodicity being considered, skew products over quasiperiodic or almost-periodic base flows, mathematical quasicrystals or maps of the real line with almost-periodic displacement. An important problem in this context is to know whether the considered system is semiconjugate to a r…
The flow in a fixed direction on a translation surface S determines a decomposition of S into closed invariant sets, each of which is either periodic or minimal. We study this decomposition for translation surfaces in the hyperelliptic connected components $\mathcal{H}^{hyp}(2g-2)$ and $\mathcal{H}^{hyp}(g-1,g-1)$ of the corresponding strata of the moduli space of translation surfaces. Specifically, we characterize the pairs of nonnegative integers (p,m) for which there exists a translation surface in $\mathcal{H}^{hyp}(2g-2)$ or $\mathcal{H}^{hyp}(g-1,g-1)$ with precisely p periodic component…
We study the integrability of the geodesic equations of the Chazy- Curzon space-time. It was established that for the equilibrium point $p_ρ=p_z=z=0$ and, $ρ_0 \in (1,\, 2)$, there are only periodic solutions, the Hamiltonian system, describing geodesic motion of Chazy-Curzon space-time has no additional analytic first integral. Our approach is based on the following: if the system has a family of periodic solutions around an equilibrium and if the period function is infinitely branched then the system has no additional analytical first integral.
We propose a general framework for studying pseudo-Anosov homeomorphisms on translation surfaces. This new approach, among other consequences, allows us to compute the systole of the Teichmueller geodesic flow restricted to the hyperelliptic connected components, settling a question of Farb. We stress that all proofs and computations are performed without the help of a computer. As a byproduct, our methods give a way to describe the bottom of the lengths spectrum of the hyperelliptic components.
Dilation surfaces are generalizations of translation surfaces where the transition maps of the atlas are translations and homotheties with a positive ratio. In contrast with translation surfaces, the directional flow on dilation surfaces may contain trajectories accumulating on a limit cycle. Such a limit cycle is called hyperbolic because it induces a nontrivial homothety. It has been conjectured that a dilation surface with no actual hyperbolic closed geodesic is in fact a translation surface. Assuming that a dilation surface contains a horizon saddle connection, we prove that the directions…
We consider the geodesic flow defined by periodic Eaton lens patterns in the plane and discover ergodic ones among those. The ergodicity result on Eaton lenses is derived from a result for quadratic differentials on the plane that are pull backs of quadratic differentials on tori. Ergodicity itself is concluded for $\mathbb{Z}^d$-covers of quadratic differentials on compact surfaces with vanishing Lyapunov exponents.
We establish a precise asymptotic formula for the number of homotopy classes of periodic orbits for the geodesic flow on rank one manifolds of nonpositive curvature. This extends a celebrated result of G. A. Margulis to the nonuniformly hyperbolic case and strengthens previous results by G. Knieper. We also establish some useful properties of the measure of maximal entropy.
We study non-resonant circles for strong magnetic fields on a closed, connected, oriented surface and show how these can be used to prove the existence of trapping regions and of periodic magnetic geodesics with prescribed low speed. As a corollary, there exist infinitely many periodic magnetic geodesics for every low speed in the following cases: i) the surface is not the two-sphere, ii) the magnetic field vanishes somewhere.
In this paper we study the existence and multiplicity of periodic orbits of exact magnetic flows with energy levels above the Mañé critical value of the universal cover on a non-compact manifold from the viewpoint of Morse theory.
In this paper, we study dynamics of geodesic flows over closed surfaces of genus greater than or equal to 2 without focal points. Especially, we prove that there is a large class of potentials having unique equilibrium states, including scalar multiples of the geometric potential, provided the scalar is less than 1. Moreover, we discuss ergodic properties of these unique equilibrium states. We show these unique equilibrium states are Bernoulli, and weighted regular periodic orbits are equidistributed relative to these unique equilibrium states.
This paper compares different pseudo-Anosov maps coming from different Birkhoff sections of a given flow. More precisely, given a hyperbolic surface and a collection of periodic geodesics on it, we study those Birkhoff sections for the geodesic flow on the unit bundle to the surface bounded by the collection. We show that there is a canonical identification of all those surfaces, and that the first-return maps induced by the flow can all be expressed as a composition of negative Dehn twists along the same family of curves: only the order depends on the choice of a particular surface.
We show that if K: P \to R is an autonomous Hamiltonian on a symplectic manifold (P,Ω) which attains 0 as a Morse-Bott nondegenerate minimum along a symplectic submanifold M, and if c_1(TP)|_M vanishes in real cohomology, then the Hamiltonian flow of K has contractible periodic orbits with bounded period on all sufficiently small energy levels. As a special case, if the geodesic flow on the cotangent bundle of M is twisted by a symplectic magnetic field form, then the resulting flow has contractible periodic orbits on all low energy levels. These results were proven by Ginzburg and Gürel when …
We show that a pseudo-Anosov map constructed as a product of the large power of Dehn twists of two filling curves always has a geodesic axis on the curve graph of the surface. We also obtain estimates of the stable translation length of a pseudo-Anosov map, when two filling curves are replaced by multicurves. Three main applications of our theorem are the following: (a) determining which word realizes the minimal translation length on the curve graph within a specific class of words, (b) giving a new class of pseudo-Anosov maps optimizing the ratio of stable translation lengths on the curve gr…
