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Laura Monk

Publications and source records attributed to Laura Monk.

13 recordsLinked to original sources

Typical hyperbolic surfaces have a spectral gap greater than $2/9 - \epsilon$

In this article, we prove that typical hyperbolic surfaces, sampled with the Weil-Petersson probability measure, have a spectral gap at least $2/9 - \epsilon$. This is an intermediate result on the way to our proof of the optimal spectral gap $1/4 - \epsilon$, building on the results of the first part of this series. A significant part of the proof is an explicit inclusion-exclusion argument to exclude tangles at the level of precision $1/g$.

math.SP

Typical hyperbolic surfaces have an optimal spectral gap

The first non-zero Laplace eigenvalue of a hyperbolic surface, or its spectral gap, measures how well-connected the surface is: surfaces with a large spectral gap are hard to cut in pieces, have a small diameter and fast mixing times. For large hyperbolic surfaces (of large area or large genus $g$, equivalently), we know that the spectral gap is asymptotically bounded above by $\frac 14$. The aim of these talks is to present joint work with Nalini Anantharaman, where we prove that most hyperbolic surfaces have a near-optimal spectral gap. That is to say, we prove that, for any $\epsilon > 0$, the Weil--Petersson probability for a hyperbolic surface of genus $g$ to have a spectral gap greater than $\frac 14- \epsilon$ goes to one as $g$ goes to infinity. This statement is analogous to Alon's 1986 conjecture for regular graphs, proven by Friedman in 2003. I will present our approach, which shares many similarities with Friedman's work, and introduce new tools and ideas that we have developed in order to tackle this problem.

math.SP

Spectral Gaps on Large Hyperbolic Surfaces

In this expository paper, we review the history and the recent breakthroughs in the spectral theory of large volume hyperbolic surfaces. More precisely, we focus mostly on the investigation of the first non-trivial eigenvalue $\lambda_1$ and its possible behaviour in the large volume regime.

math.SP

Friedman-Ramanujan functions in random hyperbolic geometry and application to spectral gaps II

The core focus of this series of two articles is the study of the distribution of the length spectrum of closed hyperbolic surfaces of genus $g$, sampled randomly with respect to the Weil-Petersson probability measure. In the first article, we introduced a notion of local topological type $T$, and established the existence of a density function $V_g^T(l)$ describing the distribution of the lengths of all closed geodesics of type $T$ in a genus $g$ hyperbolic surface. We proved that $V_g^{T}(l)$ admits an asymptotic expansion in powers of $1/g$. We introduced a new class of functions, called Friedman-Ramanujan functions, and related it to the study of the spectral gap $\lambda_1$ of the Laplacian. In this second part, we provide a variety of new tools allowing to compute and estimate the volume functions $V_g^{T}(l)$. Notably, we construct new sets of coordinates on Teichm\"uller spaces, distinct from Fenchel-Nielsen coordinates, in which the Weil-Petersson volume has a simple form. These coordinates are tailored to the geodesics we study, and we can therefore prove nice formulae for their lengths. We use these new ideas, together with a notion of pseudo-convolutions, to prove that the coefficients of the expansion of $V_g^{T}(l)$ in powers of $1/g$ are Friedman-Ramanujan functions, for any local topological type $T$. We then exploit this result to prove that, for any $\epsilon>0$, $\lambda_1 \geq \frac14 - \epsilon$ with probability going to one as $g \rightarrow + \infty$, or, in other words, typical hyperbolic surfaces have an asymptotically optimal spectral gap.

math.MG

The moduli space of twisted Laplacians and random matrix theory

Rudnick recently proved that the spectral number variance for the Laplacian of a large compact hyperbolic surface converges, in a certain scaling limit and when averaged with respect to the Weil-Petersson measure on moduli space, to the number variance of the Gaussian Orthogonal Ensemble of random matrix theory. In this article we extend Rudnick's approach to show convergence to the Gaussian Unitary Ensemble for twisted Laplacians which break time-reversal symmetry, and to the Gaussian Symplectic Ensemble for Dirac operators. This addresses a question of Naud, who obtained analogous results for twisted Laplacians on high degree random covers of a fixed compact surface.

math.SP

Spectral gap of random hyperbolic surfaces

Let $X$ be a closed, connected, oriented surface of genus $g$, with a hyperbolic metric chosen at random according to the Weil--Petersson measure on the moduli space of Riemannian metrics. Let $\lambda_1=\lambda_1(X)$ bethe first non-zero eigenvalue of the Laplacian on $X$ or, in other words, the spectral gap.In this paper we give a full road-map to prove that for arbitrarily small~$\alpha>0$,\begin{align*} \Pwp{\lambda_1 \leq \frac{1}{4} - \alpha^2 } \Lim_{g\To +\infty} 0.\end{align*}The full proofs are deferred to separate papers.

math.GT

A Moebius inversion formula to discard tangled hyperbolic surfaces

Recent literature on Weil-Petersson random hyperbolic surfaces has met a consistent obstacle: the necessity to condition the model, prohibiting certain rare geometric patterns (which we call tangles), such as short closed geodesics or embedded surfaces of short boundary length. The main result of this article is a Moebius inversion formula, allowing to integrate the indicator function of the set of tangle-free surfaces in a systematic, tractable way. It is inspired by a key step of Friedman's celebrated proof of Alon's conjecture. We further prove that our tangle-free hypothesis significantly reduces the number of local topological types of short geodesics, replacing the exponential proliferation observed on tangled surfaces by a polynomial growth.

math.GT

Spectral convergence of the Dirac operator on typical hyperbolic surfaces of high genus

In this article, we study the Dirac spectrum of typical hyperbolic surfaces of finite area, equipped with a nontrivial spin structure (so that the Dirac spectrum is discrete). For random Weil-Petersson surfaces of large genus $g$ with $o(\sqrt{g})$ cusps, we prove convergence of the spectral density to the spectral density of the hyperbolic plane, with quantitative error estimates. This result implies upper bounds on spectral counting functions and multiplicities, as well as a uniform Weyl law, true for typical hyperbolic surfaces equipped with any nontrivial spin structure.

math.SP

Friedman-Ramanujan functions in random hyperbolic geometry and application to spectral gaps I

In this series of articles, we analyse the level-sets of length functions on the moduli space of compact hyperbolic surfaces of fixed genus. This work ultimately culminates in a proof that typical hyperbolic surfaces have an optimal spectral gap. In this first article, we introduce new volume functions $V_g^T(l)$, counting the expected number of closed geodesics of type $T$ and length $l$ on a random hyperbolic surface of genus $g$. So far, this function has only been considered in the case where the type is simple, in which case it can be expressed as a combination of Weil-Petersson volumes polynomials, as proven by Mirzakhani. We provide an integral expression for $V_g^T(l)$ for any prescribed type $T$, which we use to prove that $V_g^T(l)$ admits a full asymptotic expansion in powers of $1/g$. We then claim that the coefficients in this expansion, as a function of the length variable $l$, belong to a newly-introduced class of functions called "Friedman-Ramanujan functions". We relate this claim to the study of the spectral gap of the Laplace-Beltrami operator, and prove it when $T$ fills a surface of Euler characteristic $0$ or $-1$, providing a method to explicitly compute all coefficients in the second-order expansion. We conclude by displaying how the presence of tangles (which is an event of vanishing probability) prevents the sum over all types to satisfy the Friedman-Ramanujan property at the second order.

math.SP

A high-genus asymptotic expansion of Weil-Petersson volume polynomials

The object under consideration in this article is the total volume $V_{g,n}(x_1, \ldots, x_n)$ of the moduli space of hyperbolic surfaces of genus $g$ with $n$ boundary components of lengths $x_1, \ldots, x_n$, for the Weil-Petersson volume form. We prove the existence of an asymptotic expansion of the quantity $V_{g,n}(x_1, \ldots, x_n)$ in terms of negative powers of the genus $g$, true for fixed $n$ and any $x_1, \ldots, x_n \geq 0$. The first term of this expansion appears in work of Mirzakhani and Petri (2019), and we compute the second term explicitly. The main tool used in the proof is Mirzakhani's topological recursion formula, for which we provide a comprehensive introduction.

math.GT

The tangle-free hypothesis on random hyperbolic surfaces

This article introduces the notion of L-tangle-free compact hyperbolic surfaces, inspired by the identically named property for regular graphs. Random surfaces of genus g, picked with the Weil-Petersson probability measure, are (a log g)-tangle-free for any a < 1. This is almost optimal, for any surface is (4 log g + O(1))-tangled. We establish various geometric consequences of the tangle-free hypothesis at a scale L, amongst which the fact that closed geodesics of length < L/4 are simple, disjoint and embedded in disjoint hyperbolic cylinders of width $\ge$ L/4.

math.GT

Benjamini-Schramm convergence and spectrum of random hyperbolic surfaces of high genus

We study geometric and spectral properties of typical hyperbolic surfaces of high genus, excluding a set of small measure for the Weil-Petersson probability measure. We first prove Benjamini-Schramm convergence to the hyperbolic plane H as the genus g goes to infinity. An estimate for the number of eigenvalues in an interval [a,b] in terms of a, b and g is then proven using the Selberg trace formula. It implies the convergence of spectral measures to the spectral measure of H as g $\rightarrow$+$\infty$, and a uniform Weyl law as b $\rightarrow$+$\infty$. We deduce a bound on the number of small eigenvalues, and the multiplicity of any eigenvalue.

math.PR

Resonant thickening of self-gravitating discs: imposed or self-induced orbital diffusion in the tightly wound limit

The secular thickening of a self-gravitating stellar galactic disc is investigated using the dressed collisionless Fokker-Planck equation and the inhomogeneous multicomponent Balescu-Lenard equation. The thick WKB limits for the diffusion fluxes are found using the epicyclic approximation, while assuming that only radially tightly wound transient spirals are sustained by the disc. This yields simple quadratures for the drift and diffusion coefficients, providing a clear understanding of the positions of maximum vertical orbital diffusion within the disc, induced by fluctuations either external or due to the finite number of particles. These thick limits also offer a consistent derivation of a thick disc Toomre parameter, which is shown to be exponentially boosted by the ratio of the vertical to radial scale heights. Dressed potential fluctuations within the disc statistically induce a vertical bending of a subset of resonant orbits, triggering the corresponding increase in vertical velocity dispersion. When applied to a tepid stable tapered disc perturbed by shot noise, these two frameworks reproduce qualitatively the formation of ridges of resonant orbits towards larger vertical actions, as found in direct numerical simulations, but overestimates the time-scale involved in their appearance. Swing amplification is likely needed to resolve this discrepancy, as demonstrated in the case of razor-thin discs. Other sources of thickening are also investigated, such as fading sequences of slowing bars, or the joint evolution of a population of giant molecular clouds within the disc.

astro-ph.GA