Let $M$ be a closed oriented surface endowed with a Riemannian metric $g$ and let $Ω$ be a 2-form. We show that the magnetic flow of the pair $(g,Ω)$ has zero asymptotic Maslov index and zero Liouville action if and only $g$ has constant Gaussian curvature, $Ω$ is a constant multiple of the area form of $g$ and the magnetic flow is a horocycle flow.
This characterization of horocycle flows implies that if the magnetic flow of a pair $(g,Ω)$ is $C^1$-conjugate to the horocycle flow of a hyperbolic metric $\bar{g}$ then there exists a constant $a>0$, such that $ag$ and $\bar{g}$ are isometric and $a^{-1}Ω$ is, up to a sign, the area form of $g$. The characterization also implies that if a magnetic flow is Mañé critical and uniquely ergodic it must be the horocycle flow.
As a by-product we also obtain results on existence of closed magnetic geodesics for almost all energy levels in the case weakly exact magnetic fields on arbitrary manifolds.
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 bounds for twisted ergodic averages for horocycle flows of hyperbolic surfaces, both in the compact and in the non-compact finite area case. From these bounds we derive effective equidistribution results for horocycle maps. As an application of our main theorems in the compact case we further improve on a result of A. Venkatesh, recently already improved by J. Tanis and P. Vishe, on a sparse equidistribution problem for classical horocycle flows proposed by N. Shah and G. Margulis, and in the general non-compact, finite area case we prove bounds on Fourier coefficients of cups forms w…
We derive, from the work of M. Ratner on joinings of time-changes of horocycle flows and from the result of the authors on its cohomology, the property of orthogonality of powers for non-trivial smooth time-changes of horocycle flows on compact quotients. Such a property is known to imply P. Sarnak's Möbius orthogonality conjecture, already known for horocycle flows by the work of J. Bourgain, P. Sarnak and T. Ziegler.
The orbit closure of any translation surface under the horocycle flow in almost any direction equals its $SL_2(\mathbb{R})$ orbit closure. This result gives rise to new characterizations of lattice surfaces in terms of the hororcycle flow.
We show that the Hausdorff dimension of any proper Teichmüller horocycle flow orbit closure on any $\mathrm{SL}{(2,\mathbf{R})}$-invariant subvariety of Abelian or quadratic differentials is bounded away from the dimension of the subvariety in terms of the polynomial mixing rate of the Teichmüller horocycle flow on the subvariety. The proof is based on abstract methods for measurable flows adapted from work of Bourgain and Katz on sparse ergodic theorems.
A celebrated result of Ratner from the eighties says that two horocycle flows on hyperbolic surfaces of finite area are either the same up to algebraic change of coordinates, or they have no non-trivial joinings. Recently, Mohammadi and Oh extended Ratner's theorem to horocycle flows on hyperbolic surfaces of infinite area but finite genus. In this paper, we present the first joining classification result of a horocycle flow on a hyperbolic surface of infinite genus: a $\mathbb{Z}$ or $\mathbb{Z}^2$-cover of a general compact hyperbolic surface. We also discuss several applications.
We study expansive properties for the geodesic and horocycle flows on compact Riemann surfaces of constant negative curvature. It is well-known that the geodesic flow is expansive in the sense of Bowen-Walters and the horocycle flow is positive and negative separating in the sense of Gura. In this paper, we give a new proof of the expansiveness in the sense of Bowen-Walters for the geodesic flow and show that the horocycle flow is positive and negative kinematic expensive in the sense of Artigue as well as expansive in the sense of Katok-Hasselblatt but not expensive in the sense of Bowen-Walt…
Using zippered rectangle coordinates we parametrize a Poincaré section for horocycle flow on the space of genus 2 translation surfaces with one singular cone point of angle $6π$. In addition, we bound the return time under horocycle flow to this Poincaré section by examining a subset of surfaces where a certain sum of parameters is large.
We provide a new proof that the horocycle flow preserving the Margulis measure on a variable negative curvature surface is standard. This was first proved by Ratner. The main purpose of this note is to provide a simplified case of the arguments for Kakutani equivalence of unipotent flows on homogeneous spaces, which have similar but more complicated structures, as well as illustrate the versatility of the method by applying it to a non-homogeneous flow.
We consider a minimal compact lamination by hyperbolic surfaces. We prove that if it admits a leaf whose holonomy covering is not topologically trivial, then the horocycle flow on its unitary tangent bundle is minimal.
We introduce two properties: strong R-property and $C(q)$-property, describing a special way of divergence of nearby trajectories for an abstract measure preserving system. We show that systems satisfying the strong R-property are disjoint (in the sense of Furstenberg) with systems satisfying the $C(q)$-property. Moreover, we show that if $u_t$ is a unipotent flow on $G/Γ$ with $Γ$ irreducible, then $u_t$ satisfies the $C(q)$-property provided that $u_t$ is not of the form $h_t\times\operatorname{id}$, where $h_t$ is the classical horocycle flow. Finally, we show that the strong R-property hol…
We consider smooth time-changes of the classical horocycle flows on the unit tangent bundle of a compact hyperbolic surface and prove sharp bounds on the rate of equidistribution and the rate of mixing. We then derive results on the spectrum of smooth time-changes and show that the spectrum is absolutely continuous with respect to the Lebesgue measure on the real line and that the maximal spectral type is equivalent to Lebesgue.
We formulate and prove a finite version of Vinogradov's bilinear sum inequality. We use it together with Ratner's joinings theorems to prove that the Mobius function is disjoint from discrete horocycle flows on $Γ\backslash SL_2(\mathbb{R}).
We prove (under the condition of A. G. Kushnirenko) that all time changes for the horocycle flow have purely absolutely continuous spectrum in the orthocomplement of the constant functions. This provides an answer to a question of A. Katok and J.-P. Thouvenot on the spectral nature of time changes for horocycle flows. Our proofs rely on positive commutator methods for self-adjoint operators.
A point is called generic for a flow preserving an infinite ergodic invariant Radon measure, if its orbit satisfies the conclusion of the ratio ergodic theorem for every pair of continuous functions with compact support and non-zero integrals. The generic points for horocycle flows on hyperbolic surfaces of finite genus are understood, but there are no results in infinite genus. We give such a result, by characterizing the generic points for $\Z^d$--covers.
In this paper, we provide a model for cross sections to the geodesic and horocycle flows on $\operatorname{SL}(2, \mathbb{R})/G_q$ using an extension of a heuristic of P. Arnoux and A. Nogueira. Our starting point is a continued fraction algorithm related to the group $G_q$, and a cross section to the horocycle flow on $\operatorname{SL}(2, \mathbb{R})/G_q$ from a previous paper. As an application, we get the natural extension and invariant measure for a symmetric $G_q$-Farey interval map resulting from projectivizing the aforementioned continued fraction algorithm.
The main results of this paper are limit theorems for horocycle flows on compact surfaces of constant negative curvature. One of the main objects of the paper is a special family of horocycle-invariant finitely-additive Hoelder measures on rectifiable arcs. An asymptotic formula for ergodic integrals for horocycle flows is obtained in terms of the finitely-additive measures, and limit theorems follow as a corollary of the asymptotic formula. The objects and results of this paper are similar to those in [15], [16], [4] and [5] for translation flows on flat surfaces. The arguments are based on t…
In this paper we compute all the smooth solutions to the Hamilton-Jacobi equation associated with the horocycle flow. This can be seen as the Euler-Lagrange flow (restricted to the energy level set $E^{-1}(\frac 12)$) defined by the Tonelli Lagrangian $L:T\mathbb H\rightarrow \mathbb R$ given by (hyperbolic) kinetic energy plus the standard magnetic potential. The method we use is to look at Lagrangian graphs that are contained in the level set $\{H=\frac 12\}$, where $H:T^*\mathbb H\rightarrow \mathbb R$ denotes the Hamiltonian dual to $L$.
We study the dynamics of the geodesic and horocycle flows of the unit tangent bundle $(\hat M, T^1\mathcal{F})$ of a compact minimal lamination $(M,\mathcal F)$ by negatively curved surfaces. We give conditions under which the action of the affine group generated by the joint action of these flows is minimal, and examples where this action is not minimal. In the first case, we prove that if $\mathcal F$ has a leaf which is not simply connected, the horocyle flow is topologically transitive.
A classic result due to Furstenberg is the strict ergodicity of the horocycle flow for a compact hyperbolic surface. Strict ergodicity is unique ergodicity with respect to a measure of full support, and therefore implies minimality. The horocycle flow has been previously studied on minimal foliations by hyperbolic surfaces on closed manifolds, where it is known not to be minimal in general. In this paper, we prove that for the special case of Riemannian foliations, strict ergodicity of the horocycle flow still holds. This in particular proves that this flow is minimal, which establishes a conj…
We consider flows, called $W^{\rm u}$ flows, whose orbits are the unstable manifolds of a codimension one Anosov flow. Under some regularity assumptions, we give a short proof of the strong mixing property of $W^{\rm u}$ flows and we show that $W^{\rm u}$ flows have purely absolutely continuous spectrum in the orthocomplement of the constant functions. As an application, we obtain that time changes of the classical horocycle flows for compact surfaces of constant negative curvature have purely absolutely continuous spectrum in the orthocomplement of the constant functions for time changes in a…
We prove that the orbit of a non-periodic point at prime values of the horocycle flow in the modular surface is dense in a set of positive measure. For some special orbits we also prove that they are dense in the whole space (assuming the Ramanujan/Selberg conjectures for GL(2)/Q). In the process, we derive an effective version of Dani's Theorem for the (discrete) horocycle flow.
We show that the horocyclic flow of an orientable compact higher genus surface without conjugate points and with continuous Green bundles is uniquely ergodic. The result applies to nonflat nonpositively curved surfaces and generalizes a classical result of Furstenberg and Marcus in negative curvature. The proof relies on the definition of a uniformly expanding parametrization on the quotient by the strips of the surface.
We construct a Poincaré map $\mathcal{P}_h$ for the positive horocycle flow on the modular surface $PSL(2,\mathbb{Z})\backslash \mathbb{H}$, and begin a systematic study of its dynamical properties. In particular we give a complete characterisation of the periodic orbits of $\mathcal{P}_h$, and show that they are equidistributed with respect to the invariant measure of $\mathcal{P}_h$ and that they can be organised in a tree by using the Stern-Brocot tree of rational numbers. In addition we introduce a time-reparameterisation of $\mathcal{P}_h$ which gives an insight into the dynamics of the n…
We study dynamics of the horocycle flow on strata of translation surfaces, introduce new invariants for ergodic measures, and analyze the interaction of the horocycle flow and real Rel surgeries. We use this analysis to complete and extend results of Calta and Wortman classifying horocycle-invariant measures in the eigenform loci. We classify the orbit-closures and prove that every orbit is equidistributed in its orbit-closure. We also prove equidistribution statements regarding limits of sequences of measures, some of which have applications to counting problems.
Let $M = Γ\backslash \text{SL}(2,\mathbb{R})$ be a compact quotient of $\text{SL}(2,\mathbb{R})$ equipped with the normalized Haar measure $\text{vol}$, and let $\{h_t\}_{t \in \mathbb{R}}$ denote the horocycle flow on $M$. Given $p \in M$ and $W \in \mathfrak{sl}_2(\mathbb{R}) \setminus \{0\}$ not parallel to the generator of the horocycle flow, let $γ_{p}^W$ denote the probability measure uniformly distributed along the arc $s \mapsto p \exp(sW)$ for $0\leq s \leq 1$. We establish quantitative estimates for the rate of convergence of $[(h_t)_{\ast} γ_{p}^W](f)$ to $\text{vol}(f)$ for suffici…
\noindent In [1] L. Polterovich and Z. Rudnick considered the behavior of a one-parameter subgroup of a Lie group under the influence of a sequence of kicks. Among others they raise the following problem: {\it is the horocycle flow stably quasi-mixing on $SL(2,\mathbb{R})/Γ$?} Equivalently it can be reformulated in terms of boundedness of the sequences of products $ P_n(t) = Φ_n H(t)Φ_{n-1} H(t) \, ... \, Φ_1 H(t) $ where $H(t) = \begin{pmatrix} 1 & t 0 & 1 \end{pmatrix}$ and $Φ=\{Φ_n\} \subset SL(2,\mathbb{R})$. We solve this problem positively and as a consequence obtain the following applic…
We construct a Poincaré section for the horocycle flow on the modular surface $SL(2, \R)/SL(2, \Z)$, and study the associated first return map, which coincides with a transformation (the {\it BCZ map}) defined by Boca-Cobeli-Zaharescu. We classify ergodic invariant measures for this map and prove equidistribution of periodic orbits. As corollaries, we obtain results on the average depth of cusp excursions and on the distribution of gaps for Farey sequences and slopes of lattice vectors.
We apply a method inspired by Ratner's work on quantitative mixing for the geodesic flow (Ergod. Theory Dyn. Syst., 1987) and developed by Burger (Duke Math. J., 1990) to study ergodic integrals for horocycle flows. We derive an explicit asymptotic expansion for horocycle averages, recovering a celebrated result by Flaminio and Forni (Duke Math. J., 2003), and we show that the coefficients in the asymptotic expansion are Hölder continuous with respect to the base point. Furthermore, we provide short and streamlined proofs of the spatial limit theorems of Bufetov and Forni (Ann. Sci. Éc. Norm. …
The Ratner property, a quantitative form of divergence of nearby trajectories, is a central feature in the study of parabolic homogeneous flows. Discovered by Marina Ratner and used in her 1980th seminal works on horocycle flows, it pushed forward the disjointness theory of such systems. In this paper, exploiting a recent variation of the Ratner property, we prove new disjointness phenomena for smooth parabolic flows beyond the homogeneous world. In particular, we establish a general disjointness criterion based on the switchable Ratner property. We then apply this new criterion to study disjo…
This article is a first step towards the understanding of the dynamics of the horocycle flow on foliated manifolds by hyperbolic surfaces. This is motivated by a question formulated by M. Martinez and A. Verjovsky on the minimality of this flow assuming that the natural affine foliation is minimal too. We have tried to offer a simple presentation, which allows us to update and shed light on the classical theorem proved by G. A. Hedlund in 1936 on the minimality of the horocycle flow on compact hyperbolic surfaces. Firstly, we extend this result to the product of PSL(2,R) and a Lie group G, whi…
For a given finite index subgroup H of SL(2,Z), we use a process developed by Fisher and Schmidt to lift a Poincaré section of the horocycle flow on SL(2,R)/SL(2,Z) found by Athreya and Cheung to the finite cover SL(2,R)/H of SL(2,R)/SL(2,Z). We then use the properties of this section to prove the existence of the limiting gap distribution of various subsets of Farey fractions. Additionally, to each of these subsets of fractions, we extend solutions by Xiong and Zaharescu, and independently Boca, to a Diophantine approximation problem of Erdős, Szüsz, and Turán.
We study the action of the horocycle flow on the moduli space of abelian differentials in genus two. In particular, we exhibit a classification of a specific class of probability measures that are invariant and ergodic under the horocycle flow on the stratum H(1,1).
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…
On the unit tangent bundle of a hyperbolic surface, we study the density of positive orbits $(h^s v)_{s\ge 0}$ under the horocyclic flow. More precisely, given a full orbit $(h^sv)_{s\in \R}$, we prove that under a weak assumption on the vector $v$, both half-orbits $(h^sv)_{s\ge 0}$ and $(h^s v)_{s\le 0}$ are simultaneously dense or not in the nonwandering set $\mathcal{E}$ of the horocyclic flow. We give also a counter-example to this result when this assumption is not satisfied.
The Farey sequence is the sequence of all rational numbers in the real unit interval, stratified by increasing denominators. A classical result by Hall says that its normalized gap distribution is the same as the distribution of the random variable 1/(2 zeta(2) xy) on a certain unit triangle. In this paper we weight the denominators by an arbitrary piecewise-smooth continuous function, and we characterize the resulting gap distribution as that of a multiple of the above variable, defined on a certain unit pentagon. Our characterization refines previous results by Boca, Cobeli and Zaharescu, bu…
We show that the ergodic averages for the horocycle flow on the two-torus associated by Giulietti and Liverani to an Anosov diffeomorphism either grow linearly or are bounded, in other words there are no deviations. For this, we use topological invariance of the Artin-Mazur zeta function to exclude resonances outside of the open unit disc. Transfer operators acting on suitable spaces of anisotropic distributions and their Ruelle determinants are the key tools in the proof. As a bonus, we show that for any smooth Anosov diffeomorphism F on the two-torus, the correlations for the measure of maxi…
Let $(h_t)_{t\in \mathbb{R}}$ be the horocycle flow acting on $(M,μ)=(Γ\backslash \text{SL}(2,\mathbb{R}),μ)$, where $Γ$ is a co-compact lattice in $\text{SL}(2,\mathbb{R})$ and $μ$ is the homogeneous probability measure locally given by the Haar measure on $\text{SL}(2,\mathbb{R})$. Let $τ\in W^6(M)$ be a strictly positive function and let $μ^τ$ be the measure equivalent to $μ$ with density $τ$. We consider the time changed flow $(h_t^τ)_{t\in \mathbb{R}}$ and we show that there exists $γ=γ(M,τ)>0$ and a constant $C>0$ such that for any $ f_0, f_1, f_2\in W^6(M)$ and for all $0=t_0<t_1<t_2$, …
There is an intriguing connection between the dynamics of the horocycle flow in the modular surface $SL_{2}(\pmb{Z}) \backslash SL_{2}(\pmb{R})$ and the Riemann hypothesis. It appears in the error term for the asymptotic of the horocycle average of a modular function of rapid decay. We study whether similar results occur for a broader class of modular functions, including functions of polynomial growth, and of exponential growth at the cusp. Hints on their long horocycle average are derived by translating the horocycle flow dynamical problem in string theory language. Results are then proved b…
We track the trajectories of individual horocycles on the modular surface. Our tracking is constructive, and we thus \emph{effectively} establish topological transitivity and even line-transitivity for the horocyclic flow. We also describe homotopy class jumps that occur under continuous deformation of horocycles.
We present a method, based on commutator methods, for the spectral analysis of uniquely ergodic dynamical systems. When applicable, it leads to the absolute continuity of the spectrum of the corresponding unitary operators. As an illustration, we consider time changes of horocycle flows, skew products over translations and Furstenberg transformations. For time changes of horocycle flows, we obtain absolute continuity under assumptions weaker than the ones to be found in the literature.
