arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Françoise Dal'Bo.
We exhibit orbits of the geodesic flow on a hyperbolic surface with at least one cusp such that every tubular neighborhood contains uncountably many distinct geodesic flow orbits. The proof relies on new phenomena, namely the existence of strong stable sets in the dynamical sense that do not coincide with the stable horocycles. When the surface has finite volume, this phenomenon is typical.
We provide a corrected proof of a theorem of A. Bellis on strong stable sets in the unit tangent bundle of certain hyperbolic surfaces. The theorem states that, for vectors whose geodesic rays encounter arbitrarily short closed geodesics, the strong stable set in the dynamical sense does not coincide with the associated horocyclic orbit. The proof is based on Bellis' idea of constructing geodesic rays that wind around infinitely many closed geodesics.
In this paper we study topological aspects of the dynamics of the foliated horocycle flow on flat projective bundles over hyperbolic surfaces and we derive ergodic consequences. If $ρ: Γ\to {\rm PSL}(n+1,\mathbb{R})$ is a representation of a non-elementary Fuchsian group $Γ$, the unit tangent bundle $Y$ associated to the flat projective bundle defined by $ρ$ admits a natural action of the affine group $B$ obtained by combining the foliated geodesic and horocycle flows. If the image $ρ(Γ)$ satisfies Conze-Guivarc'h conditions, namely strong irreducibility and proximality, the dynamics of the $B$-action is captured by the proximal dynamics of $ρ(Γ)$ on $\mathbb{R}{\rm P}^n$ (Theorem A). In fact, the dynamics of the foliated horocycle flow on the unique $B$-minimal subset of $Y$ can be described in terms of dynamics of the horocycle flow on the non-wandering set in the unit tangent bundle $X$ of the surface $S= Γ\backslash \mathbb{H}$ (Theorem B). Assuming the existence of a continuous limit map, we prove that the $B$-minimal set is an attractor for the foliated horocycle flow restricted to the proximal part of the non-wandering set in $Y$ (Theorem C). As a corollary, we deduce that the restricted flow admits a unique conservative ergodic $U$-invariant Radon measure (defined up to a multiplicative constant) if and only if $Γ$ is convex-cocompact. For example, the foliated horocycle flow on the sphere bundle defined by the Cannon-Thurston map is uniquely ergodic.
We describe several methods to construct minimal foliations by hyperbolic surfaces on closed 3-manifolds, and discuss the properties of the examples thus obtained.
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 conjecture proposed by Matsumoto. The main tool is a theorem due to Coudène, which he presented as an alternative proof for the surface case. It applies to two continuous flows defining a measure-preserving action of the affine group of the line on a compact metric space, precisely matching the foliated setting. In addition, we briefly discuss the application of Coudène's theorem to other kinds of foliations.
We prove a general version of the amenability conjecture in the unified setting of a Gromov hyperbolic group G acting properly cocompactly either on its Cayley graph, or on a CAT(-1)-space. Namely, for any subgroup H of G, we show that H is co-amenable in G if and only if their exponential growth rates (with respect to the prescribed action) coincide. For this, we prove a quantified, representation-theoretical version of Stadlbauer's amenability criterion for group extensions of a topologically transitive subshift of finite type, in terms of the spectral radii of the classical Ruelle transfer operator and its corresponding extension. As a consequence, we are able to show that, in our enlarged context, there is a gap between the exponential growth rate of a group with Kazhdan's property (T) and the ones of its infinite index subgroups. This also generalizes a well-known theorem of Corlette for lattices of the quaternionic hyperbolic space or the Cayley hyperbolic plane.
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.
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, which places us within the homogeneous framework investigated by M. Ratner. Since our purpose is to deal with non-homogeneous situations, we do not use Ratner's famous Orbit-Closure Theorem, but we give an elementary proof. We show that this special situation arises for homogeneous Riemannian and Lie foliations, reintroducing the foliation point of view. Examples and counter-examples take an important place in our work, in particular, the very instructive case of the hyperbolic torus bundles over the circle. Our aim in writing this text is to offer to the reader an accessible introduction to a subject that was intensively studied in the algebraic setting, although there still are unsolved geometric problems.
We study the relation between the exponential growth rate of volume in a pinched negatively curved manifold and the critical exponent of its lattices. These objects have a long and interesting story and are closely related to the geometry and the dynamical properties of the geodesic flow of the manifold .