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Jon Chaika

Publications and source records attributed to Jon Chaika.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
arXiv2025

Veech Surfaces and Expanding Twist Tori on Moduli Spaces of Abelian Differentials

Let $(M,\omega)$ be a translation surface such that every leaf of its horizontal foliation is either closed, or joins two zeros of $\omega$. Then, $M$ decomposes as a union of horizontal Euclidean cylinders. The $\textit{twist torus}$ of $(M,\omega)$, denoted $\mathbb{T}(\omega)$, consists of all translation surfaces obtained from $(M,\omega)$ by applying the horocycle flow independently to each of these cylinders. Let $g_t$ be the Teichm\"uller geodesic flow. We study the distribution of the expanding tori $g_t\cdot \mathbb{T}(\omega)$ on moduli spaces of translation surfaces in cases where $(M,\omega)$ is a $\textit{Veech surface}$. We provide sufficient criteria for these tori to become dense within the conjectured limiting locus $\mathcal{M} :=\overline{\mathrm{SL}_2(\mathbb{R})\cdot \mathbb{T}(\omega)}$ as $t\rightarrow \infty$. We also provide criteria guaranteeing a uniform lower bound on the mass a given open set $U\subset\mathcal{M}$ must receive with respect to any weak-$\ast$ limit of the uniform measures on $g_t\cdot \mathbb{T}(\omega)$ as $t\rightarrow\infty$. In particular, all such limits must be fully supported in $\mathcal{M}$ in such cases. Finally, we exhibit infinite families of well-known examples of Veech surfaces satisfying each of these results. A key feature of our results in comparison to previous work is that they do not require passage to subsequences.

math.DS↗
arXiv2024

Path-connectivity of Thick Laminations, and Markov Processes with Thick Limit Sets

A lamination $\lambda$ is $\epsilon$-thick (with respect to a basepoint $X$), if the Teichm\"uller ray from $X$ in the direction of $\lambda$ stays in the $\epsilon$-thick part. We show that, for surfaces of high enough genus, any two $\epsilon$-thick laminations can be joined by a path of $\delta$-thick laminations. As a consequence, we show that the Morse boundary of the mapping class group is path-connected. Furthermore, we construct a subshift of finite type on the mapping class group, whose limit set consists only of thick laminations and is path-connected.

math.GT↗
arXiv2024

Weak mixing in rational billiards

We completely characterize rational polygons whose billiard flow is weakly mixing in almost every direction as those which are not almost integrable, in the terminology of Gutkin, modulo some low complexity exceptions. This proves a longstanding conjecture of Gutkin. This result is derived from a complete characterization of translation surfaces that are weakly mixing in almost every direction: they are those that do not admit an affine factor map to the circle.

math.DS↗
arXiv2023

Horocycle dynamics in rank one invariant subvarieties I: weak measure classification and equidistribution

Let M be an invariant subvariety in the moduli space of translation surfaces. We contribute to the study of the dynamical properties of the horocycle flow on M. In the context of dynamics on the moduli space of translation surfaces, we introduce the notion of a 'weak classification of horocycle invariant measures' and we study its consequences. Among them, we prove genericity of orbits and related uniform equidistribution results, asymptotic equidistribution of sequences of pushed measures, and counting of saddle connection holonomies. As an example, we show that invariant varieties of rank one, Rel-dimension one and related spaces obtained by adding marked points satisfy the 'weak classification of horocycle invariant measures'. Our results extend prior results obtained by Eskin-Masur-Schmoll, Eskin-Marklof-Morris, and Bainbridge-Smillie-Weiss.

math.DS↗
arXiv2023

On the ergodic theory of the real Rel foliation

Let $\mathcal{H}$ be a stratum of translation surfaces with at least two singularities, let $m_{\mathcal{H}}$ denote the Masur-Veech measure on $\mathcal{H}$, and let $Z_0$ be a flow on $(\mathcal{H}, m_{\mathcal{H}})$ obtained by integrating a Rel vector field. We prove that $Z_0$ is mixing of all orders, and in particular is ergodic. We also characterize the ergodicity of flows defined by Rel vector field, for more general spaces $(\mathcal{L}, m_{\mathcal{L}})$, where $\mathcal{L} \subset \mathcal{H}$ is an orbit-closure for the action of $G = \mathrm{SL}_2(\mathbb{R})$ (i.e., an affine invariant subvariety) and $m_{\mathcal{L}}$ is the natural measure. Our results are conditional on a forthcoming measure classification result of Brown, Eskin, Filip and Rodriguez-Hertz.We also prove that the entropy of the action of $Z_0$ on $(\mathcal{L}, m_{\mathcal{L})$ has zero entropy.

math.DS↗
arXiv2022

Pairs in discrete lattice orbits with applications to Veech surfaces

Let $\Lambda_1$, $\Lambda_2$ be two discrete orbits under the linear action of a lattice $\Gamma<\mathrm{SL}_2(\mathbb{R})$ on the Euclidean plane. We prove a Siegel$-$Veech-type integral formula for the averages $$ \sum_{\mathbf{x}\in\Lambda_1} \sum_{\mathbf{y}\in\Lambda_2} f(\mathbf{x}, \mathbf{y}) $$ from which we derive new results for the set $S_M$ of holonomy vectors of saddle connections of a Veech surface $M$. This includes an effective count for generic Borel sets with respect to linear transformations, and upper bounds on the number of pairs in $S_M$ with bounded determinant and on the number of pairs in $S_M$ with bounded distance. This last estimate is used in the appendix to prove that for almost every $(\theta,\psi)\in S^1\times S^1$ the translations flows $F_\theta^t$ and $F_\psi^t$ on any Veech surface $M$ are disjoint.

math.DS↗
arXiv2022

Shrinking rates of horizontal gaps for generic translation surfaces

A translation surface is given by polygons in the plane, with sides identified by translations to create a closed Riemann surface with a flat structure away from finitely many singular points. Understanding geodesic flow on a surface involves understanding saddle connections. Saddle connections are the geodesics starting and ending at these singular points and are associated to a discrete subset of the plane. To measure the behavior of saddle connections of length at most $R$, we obtain precise decay rates as $R\to \infty$ for the difference in angle between two almost horizontal saddle connections.

math.DS↗
arXiv2021

On the Space of Ergodic Measures for the Horocycle Flow on Strata of Abelian Differentials

We study the horocycle flow on the stratum of translation surfaces $\mathcal{H}(2)$. We show that there is a sequence of horocycle ergodic measures, each supported on a periodic horocycle orbit, which weakly converges to an invariant, but non-ergodic, measure by $\mathrm{SL}_2(\mathbb{R})$. As a consequence, we show that there are points in $\mathcal{H}(2)$ whose horocycle flow orbits do not equidistribute towards any invariant measure.

math.DS↗
arXiv2021

Stationary coalescing walks on the lattice II: Entropy

This paper is a sequel to Chaika and Krishnan [arXiv:1612.00434]. We again consider translation invariant measures on families of nearest-neighbor semi-infinite walks on the integer lattice Z^d. We assume that once walks meet, they coalesce. We consider various entropic properties of these systems. We show that in systems with completely positive entropy, bi-infinite trajectories must carry entropy. In the case of directed walks in dimension 2 we show that positive entropy guarantees that all trajectories cannot be bi-infinite. To show that our theorems are proper, we construct a stationary discrete-time symmetric exclusion process whose particle trajectories form bi-infinite trajectories carrying entropy.

math.PR↗
arXiv2021

A prime system with many self-joinings

We construct a rigid, rank 1, prime transformation that is not quasi-simple and whose self-joinings form a Paulsen simplex. This seems to be the first example of a prime system whose self-joinings form a Paulsen simplex.

math.DS↗
arXiv2020

Zero Measure Spectrum for Multi-Frequency Schrödinger Operators

Building on works of Berthé--Steiner--Thuswaldner and Fogg--Nous we show that on the two-dimensional torus, Lebesgue almost every translation admits a natural coding such that the associated subshift satisfies the Boshernitzan criterion. As a consequence we show that for these torus translations, every quasi-periodic potential can be approximated uniformly by one for which the associated Schrödinger operator has Cantor spectrum of zero Lebesgue measure. We also describe a framework that can allow this to be extended to higher-dimensional tori.

math.SP↗
arXiv2020

Singularity of the spectrum for smooth area-preserving flows in genus two and translation surfaces well approximated by cylinders

We consider smooth flows preserving a smooth invariant measure, or, equivalently, locally Hamiltonian flows on compact orientable surfaces and show that, when the genus of the surface is two, almost every such locally Hamiltonian flow with two non degenerate isomorphic saddle has singular spectrum. More in general, singularity of the spectrum holds for special flows over a full measure set of interval exchange transformations with a hyperelliptic permutation (of any number of exchanged intervals), under a roof with symmetric logarithmic singularities. The result is proved using a criterion for singularity based on tightness of Birkhoff sums with exponential tails decay. A key ingredient in the proof, which is of independent interest, is a result on translation surfaces well approximated by single cylinders. We show that for almost every translation surface in any connected component of any stratum there exists a full measure set of directions which can be well approximated by a single cylinder of area arbitrarily close to one. The result, in the special case of the stratum $\mathcal{H}(1,1)$, yields rigidity sets needed for the singularity result.

math.DS↗
arXiv2020

Tremors and horocycle dynamics on the moduli space of translation surfaces

We introduce a "tremor" deformation on strata of translation surfaces. Using it, we give new examples of behaviors of horocycle flow orbits in strata of translation surfaces. In the genus two stratum with two singular points, we find orbits which are generic for a measure whose support is strictly contained in the orbit and find orbits which are not generic for any measure. We also describe a horocycle orbit-closure whose Hausdorff dimension is not an integer.

math.DS↗
arXiv2020

Weakly Mixing Polygonal Billiards

We prove that there exists a residual set of (non-rational) polygons such the billiard flow is weakly mixing with respect to the Liouville measure (on the unit tangent bundle to the billiard). This follows, via a Baire category argument, from showing that for any translation surface the product of the flows in almost every pair of directions is ergodic with respect to Lebesgue measure. This in turn is proven by showing that for every translation surface the flows in almost every pair of directions do not share non-trivial common eigenvalues.

math.DS↗