We prove the Zorich-Kontsevich conjecture that the non-trivial Lyapunov exponents of the Teichmüller flow on (any connected component of a stratum of) the moduli space of Abelian differentials on compact Riemann surfaces are all distinct. By previous work of Zorich and Kontsevich, this implies the existence of the complete asymptotic Lagrangian flag describing the behavior in homology of the vertical foliation in a typical translation surface.
We construct an orientable holomorphic quadratic differential on a Riemann surface of genus 4 whose SL(2,R)-orbit is closed and has a highly degenerate Kontsevich - Zorich spectrum. This example is related to a previous similar construction in genus 3 by the first author.
We describe the Kontsevich--Zorich cocycle over an affine invariant orbifold coming from a (cyclic) covering construction inspired by works of Veech and McMullen. In particular, using the terminology in a recent paper of Filip, we show that all cases of Kontsevich--Zorich monodromies of $SU(p,q)$ type are realized by appropriate covering constructions.
In this note, we exploit the arithmeticity criterion of Benoist--Miquel to exhibit an origami in the principal stratum of the moduli space of translation surfaces of genus three whose Kontsevich--Zorich monodromy is not thin in the sense of Sarnak.
We present a mechanism for producing oscillations along the lift of the Teichmüller geodesic flow to the (real) Hodge bundle, as the basepoint surface is deformed by a unipotent element of $\text{SL}_2(\mathbb{R})$. Invoking Chen-Möller, we apply our methods to all but finitely many strata in genus $4$, those exhibiting a varying Lyapunov-exponents phenomenon.
We prove a geometric criterion on a $\SL$-invariant ergodic probability measure on the moduli space of holomorphic abelian differentials on Riemann surfaces for the non-uniform hyperbolicity of the Kontsevich--Zorich cocycle on the real Hodge bundle. Applications include measures supported on the $\SL$-orbits of all algebraically primitive Veech surfaces (see also \cite{Bouw:Moeller}) and of all Prym eigenforms discovered in \cite{McMullen2}, as well as all canonical absolutely continuous measures on connected components of strata of the moduli space of abelian differentials (see also \cite{Ft…
We describe all the situations in which the Kontsevich-Zorich cocycle has zero Lyapunov exponents. Confirming a conjecture of Forni, Matheus, and Zorich, this only occurs when the cocycle satisfies additional geometric constraints. We also describe the real Lie groups which can appear in the monodromy of the Kontsevich-Zorich cocycle. The number of zero exponents is then as small as possible, given its monodromy.
Rauzy Classes and Extended Rauzy Classes are equivalence classes of permutations that arise when studying Interval Exchange Transformations. In 2003, Kontsevich and Zorich classified Extended Rauzy Classes by using data from Translation Surfaces, which are associated to IET's thanks to the Zippered Rectangle Construction of Veech from 1982. In 2009, Boissy finalized the classification of Rauzy Classes also using information from Translation Surfaces. We present in this paper specialized moves in (Extended) Rauzy Classes that allows us to prove the sufficiency and necessity in the previous clas…
For all $d$ belonging to a density-$1/8$ subset of the natural numbers, we give an example of a square-tiled surface conjecturally realizing the group $\mathrm{SO}^*(2d)$ in its standard representation as the Zariski-closure of a factor of its monodromy. We prove that this conjecture holds for the first elements of this subset, showing that the group $\mathrm{SO}^*(2d)$ is realizable for every $11 \leq d \leq 299$ such that $d = 3 \bmod 8$, except possibly for $d = 35$ and $d = 203$.
We compute the algebraic hull of the Kontsevich-Zorich cocycle over any GL^+_2(R) invariant subvariety of the Hodge bundle, and derive from this finiteness results on such subvarieties.
We prove that if the Lyapunov spectrum of the Kontsevich-Zorich cocycle over an affine SL$(2,\mathbb{R})$-invariant submanifold is completely degenerate, i.e. $λ_2 = \cdots = λ_g = 0$, then the submanifold must be an arithmetic Teichmueller curve in the moduli space of Abelian differentials over surfaces of genus three, four, or five. As a corollary, we prove that there are at most finitely many such Teichmueller curves.
We introduce two square-tiled surfaces, one with $8$ squares inside $Ω\mathcal{M}_3(2,2)$, and the other with $9$ squares inside $Ω\mathcal{M}_4(3,3)$, respectively. In these examples, the dimensions of the isotropic subspaces (in absolute homology) generated by the waist curves of the maximal cylinders in any fixed rational direction are $2$ and $3$ respectively. Hence, a geometrical criterion of G. Forni for the non-uniform hyperbolicity of Kontsevich-Zorich (KZ) cocycle can not be applied to these examples. Nevertheless, we prove that there are no vanishing exponents and the spectrum is sim…
We give an example of a Teichmüller curve which contains, in a factor of its monodromy, a group which was not observed before. Namely, it has Zariski closure equal to the group $SO^*(6)$ in its standard representation; up to finite index, this is the same as $SU(3,1)$ in its second exterior power representation. The example is constructed using origamis (i.e. square-tiled surfaces). It can be generalized to give monodromy inside the group $SO^*(2n)$ for all $n$, but in the general case the monodromy might split further inside the group. Also, we take the opportunity to compute the multipliciti…
Ten years ago A. Zorich discovered, by computer experiments on interval exchange transformations, some striking new power laws for the ergodic integrals of generic non-exact Hamiltonian flows on higher genus surfaces. In Zorich's later work and in a joint paper authored by M. Kontsevich, Zorich and Kontsevich were able to explain conjecturally most of Zorich's discoveries by relating them to the ergodic theory of Teichmüller flows on moduli spaces of Abelian differentials. In this article, we outline a generalization of the Kontsevich-Zorich framework to a class of `renormalizable' flows on `p…
We compute the Zariski closure of the Kontsevich-Zorich monodromy groups arising from certain square tiled surfaces that are geometrically motivated. Specifically we consider three surfaces that emerge as translation covers of platonic solids and quotients of infinite polyhedra, and show that the Zariski closure of the monodromy group arising from each surface is equal to a power of $\rm{SL}(2, \mathbb{R})$. We prove our results by finding generators for the monodromy groups, using a theorem of Matheus-Yoccoz-Zmiaikou that provides constraints on the Zariski closure of the groups (to obtain an…
We reduce a question of Eskin-Kontsevich-Zorich and Forni-Matheus-Zorich, which asks for a classification of all $\text{SL}_2(\mathbb{R})$-invariant ergodic probability measures with completely degenerate Kontsevich-Zorich spectrum, to a conjecture of Möller's. Let $\mathcal{D}_g (1)$ be the subset of the moduli space of Abelian differentials $\mathcal{M}_g$ whose elements have period matrix derivative of rank one. There is an $\text{SL}_2(\mathbb{R})$-invariant ergodic probability measure $ν$ with completely degenerate Kontsevich-Zorich spectrum, i.e. $λ_1 = 1 > λ_2 = \cdots = λ_g = 0$, if an…
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 …
The purpose of the paper under review is to explain the main ideas and the main ingredients of the involved and delicate work of A. Eskin, M. Kontsevich and A. Zorich concerning the sum of the positive Lyapunov exponents of the so-called Kontsevich- Zorich cocycle acting on the first cohomology spaces of translation surfaces.
This text is an expanded version of the lecture notes of a minicourse (with the same title of this text) delivered by the authors in the Bedlewo school "Modern Dynamics and its Interaction with Analysis, Geometry and Number Theory" (from 4 to 16 July, 2011). In the first part of this text, i.e., from Sections 1 to 5, we discuss the Teichmüller and moduli space of translation surfaces, the Teichmüller flow and the SL(2,R)-action on these moduli spaces and the Kontsevich-Zorich cocycle over the Teichmüller geodesic flow. We sketch two applications of the ergodic properties of the Teichmüller flo…
We prove a substantial part of a conjecture of Kontsevich and Zorich on the Lyapunov exponents of the Teichmuller geodesic flow on the deviation of ergodic averages for generic conservative flows on higher genus surfaces. The result on the Teichmuller flow is formulated in terms of a (symplectic) cocycle on the real cohomology bundle over the moduli space of holomorphic differentials introduced by Kontsevich and Zorich. We prove that such a cocycle is non-uniformly hyperbolic, that is, all of its Lyapunov exponents are different from zero. In particular, the number of strictly positive exponen…
We exhibit an explicit sufficient condition for the Lyapunov exponents of a linear cocycle over a Markov map to have multiplicity 1. This builds on work of Guivarc'h-Raugi and Gol'dsheid-Margulis, who considered products of random matrices, and of Bonatti-Viana, who dealt with the case when the base dynamics is a subshift of finite type. Here the Markov structure may have infinitely many symbols and the ambient space needs not be compact. As an application, in another paper we prove the Zorich-Kontsevich conjecture on the Lyapunov spectrum of the Teichmüller flow in the space of translation su…
In this note we show that the results of H. Furstenberg on the Poisson boundary of lattices of semisimple Lie groups allow to deduce simplicity properties of the Lyapunov spectrum of the Kontsevich-Zorich cocycle of Teichmueller curves in moduli spaces of Abelian differentials without the usage of codings of the Teichmueller flow. As an application, we show the simplicity of some Lyapunov exponents in the setting of (some) Prym Teichmueller curves of genus 4 where a coding-based approach seems hard to implement because of the poor knowledge of the Veech group of these Teichmueller curves. Fina…
We present a Galois-theoretical criterion for the simplicity of the Lyapunov spectrum of the Kontsevich-Zorich cocycle over the Teichmueller flow on the $SL_2(R)$-orbit of a square-tiled surface. The simplicity of the Lyapunov spectrum has been proved by A. Avila and M. Viana with respect to the so-called Masur-Veech measures associated to connected components of moduli spaces of translation surfaces, but is not always true for square-tiled surfaces of genus $\geq 3$. We apply our criterion to square-tiled surfaces of genus 3 with one single zero. Conditionally to a conjecture of Delecroix and…
We prove that the Birkhoff pointwise ergodic theorem and the Oseledets multiplicative ergodic theorem hold for every flat surface in almost every direction. The proofs rely on the strong law of large numbers, and on recent rigidity results for the action of the upper triangular subgroup of SL(2,R) on the moduli space of flat surfaces. Most of the results also use a theorem about continuity of splittings of the Kontsevich-Zorich cocycle recently proved by S. Filip.
Inspired by Katz-Mazur theorem on crystalline cohomology and by Eskin-Kontsevich-Zorich's numerical experiments, we conjecture that the polygon of Lyapunov spectrum lies above (or on) the Harder-Narasimhan polygon of the Hodge bundle over any Teichmüller curve. We also discuss the connections between the two polygons and the integral of eigenvalues of the curvature of the Hodge bundle by using Atiyah-Bott, Forni and Möller's works. We obtain several applications to Teichmüller dynamics conditional to the conjecture.
