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Yair Minsky

Publications and source records attributed to Yair Minsky.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

Weaving Geodesics and New Phenomena in Horocyclic Dynamics

We construct geometrically infinite hyperbolic surfaces supporting horocycles with tailored recurrence properties. In particular, we obtain the first examples of non-trivial minimal horocyclic orbit closures and of infinite locally-finite conservative horocyclic invariant measures which are singular with respect to the geodesic flow. Other examples include surfaces supporting horocyclic orbit closures of arbitrary Hausdorff dimension in $(1,2)$.

math.DS

Asymptotically CAT(0) metrics, Z-structures, and the Farrell-Jones Conjecture

We show that colorable hierarchically hyperbolic groups (HHGs) admit asymptotically CAT(0) metrics, that is, roughly, metrics where the CAT(0) inequality holds up to sublinear error in the size of the triangle. We use the asymptotically CAT(0) metrics to construct contractible simplicial complexes and compactifications that provide $\mathcal{Z}$-structures in the sense of Bestvina and Dranishnikov. It was previously unknown that mapping class groups are asymptotically CAT(0) and admit $\mathcal{Z}$-structures. As an application, we prove that many HHGs satisfy the Farrell--Jones Conjecture, including extra large-type Artin groups. To construct asymptotically CAT(0) metrics, we show that hulls of finitely many points in a colorable HHGs can be approximated by CAT(0) cube complexes in a way that adding a point to the finite set corresponds, up to finitely many hyperplanes deletions, to a convex embedding.

math.GT

Classification of horocycle orbit closures in $ \mathbb{Z} $-covers

We fully describe all horocycle orbit closures in $ \mathbb{Z} $-covers of compact hyperbolic surfaces. Our results rely on a careful analysis of the efficiency of all distance minimizing geodesic rays in the cover. As a corollary we obtain in this setting that all non-maximal horocycle orbit closures, while fractal, have integer Hausdorff dimension.

math.DS

Simply transitive geodesics and omnipotence of lattices in PSL$(2,\mathbb{C})$

We show that the isometry group of a finite-volume hyperbolic 3-manifold acts simply transitively on many of its closed geodesics. Combining this observation with the Virtual Special Theorems of the first author and Wise, we show that every non-arithmetic lattice in PSL$(2,\mathbb{C})$ is the full group of orientation-preserving isometries for some other lattice and that the orientation-preserving isometry group of a finite-volume hyperbolic 3-manifold acts non-trivially on the homology of some finite-sheeted cover.

math.GT

Minimizing laminations in regular covers, horospherical orbit closures, and circle-valued Lipschitz maps

We expose a connection between distance minimizing laminations and horospherical orbit closures in $\mathbb{Z}$-covers of compact hyperbolic manifolds. For surfaces, we provide novel constructions of $\mathbb{Z}$-covers with prescribed geometric and dynamical properties, in which an explicit description of all horocycle orbit closures is given. We further show that even the slightest of perturbations to the hyperbolic metric on a $\mathbb{Z}$-cover can lead to drastic topological changes to horocycle orbit closures.

math.DS

Hausdorff dimension of directional limit sets for self-joinings of hyperbolic manifolds

The classical result of Patterson and Sullivan says that for a non-elementary convex cocompact subgroup $Γ<\text{SO}^\circ (n,1)$, $n\ge 2$, the Hausdorff dimension of the limit set of $Γ$ is equal to the critical exponent of $Γ$. In this paper, we generalize this result for self-joinings of convex cocompact groups in two ways. Let $Δ$ be a finitely generated group and $ρ_i:Δ\to \text{SO}^\circ(n_i,1)$ be a convex cocompact faithful representation of $Δ$ for $1\le i\le k$. Associated to $ρ=(ρ_1, \cdots, ρ_k)$, we consider the following self-joining subgroup of $\prod_{i=1}^k \text{SO}(n_i,1)$: $$Γ=\left(\prod_{i=1}^kρ_i\right)(Δ)=\{(ρ_1(g), \cdots, ρ_k(g)):g\in Δ\} .$$ (1). Denoting by $Λ\subset \prod_{i=1}^k \mathbb{S}^{n_i-1}$ the limit set of $Γ$, we first prove that $$\text{dim}_H Λ=\max_{1\le i\le k} δ_{ρ_i}$$ where $δ_{ρ_i}$ is the critical exponent of the subgroup $ρ_{i}(Δ)$. (2). Denoting by $Λ_u\subset Λ$ the $u$-directional limit set for each $u=(u_1, \cdots, u_k)$ in the interior of the limit cone of $Γ$, we obtain that for $k\le 3$, $$ \frac{ψ_Γ(u)}{\max_i u_i }\le \text{dim}_H Λ_u \le \frac{ψ_Γ(u)}{\min_i u_i }$$ where $ψ_Γ:\mathbb{R}^k\to \mathbb{R}\cup\{-\infty\}$ is the growth indicator function of $Γ$.

math.DS

Bottlenecks for Weil-Petersson geodesics

We introduce a method for constructing Weil-Petersson (WP) geodesics with certain behavior in the Teichmüller space. This allows us to study the itinerary of geodesics among the strata of the WP completion and its relation to subsurface projection coefficients of their end invariants. As an application we demonstrate the disparity between short curves in the universal curve over a WP geodesic and those of the associated hyperbolic $3$-manifold.

math.GT

Surface groups are flexibly stable

We show that surface groups are flexibly stable in permutations. This is the first non-trivial example of a non-amenable flexibly stable group. Our method is purely geometric and relies on an analysis of branched covers of hyperbolic surfaces. Along the way we establish a quantitative variant of the LERF property for surface groups which may be of independent interest.

math.GR

Skinning bounds along thick rays

We show that the diameter of the skinning map of an acylindrical hyperbolic 3-manifold M is bounded on thick Teichmueller geodesic rays by a constant depending only on the thickness of the ray and the topological type of the boundary of M.

math.GT

The dynamics of Aut(F_n) on redundant representations

We study some dynamical properties of the canonical Aut(F_n)-action on the space R_n(G) of redundant representations of the free group F_n in G, where G is the group of rational points of a simple algebraic group over a local field. We show that this action is always minimal and ergodic, confirming a conjecture of A. Lubotzky. On the other hand for the classical cases where G=SL(2,R) or SL(2,C) we show that the action is not weak mixing, in the sense that the diagonal action on R_n(G)^2 is not ergodic.

math.DS

Bounded combinatorics and uniform models for hyperbolic 3-manifolds

Bounded-type 3-manifolds arise as combinatorially bounded gluings of irreducible 3-manifolds chosen from a finite list. We prove effective hyperbolization and effective rigidity for a broad class of 3-manifolds of bounded type and large gluing heights. Specifically, we show the existence and uniqueness of hyperbolic metrics on 3-manifolds of bounded type and large heights, and prove existence of a bilipschitz diffeomorphism to a combinatorial model described explicitly in terms of the list of irreducible manifolds, the topology of the identification, and the combinatorics of the gluing maps.

math.GT

Extending pseudo-Anosov maps to compression bodies

We show that a pseudo-Anosov map on a boundary component of an irreducible 3-manifold has a power that partially extends to the interior if and only if its (un)stable lamination is a projective limit of meridians. The proof is through 3-dimensional hyperbolic geometry, and involves an investigation of algebraic limits of convex cocompact compression bodies.

math.GT

Discrete primitive-stable representations with large rank surplus

We construct a sequence of primitive-stable representations of free groups into PSL(2,C) whose ranks go to infinity, but whose images are discrete with quotient manifolds that converge geometrically to a knot complement. In particular this implies that the rank and geometry of the image of a primitive-stable representation imposes no constraint on the rank of the domain.

math.GT

Asymptotics of Weil-Petersson geodesics II: bounded geometry and unbounded entropy

We use ending laminations for Weil-Petersson geodesics to establish that bounded geometry is equivalent to bounded combinatorics for Weil-Petersson geodesic segments, rays, and lines. Further, a more general notion of non-annular bounded combinatorics, which allows arbitrarily large Dehn-twisting, corresponds to an equivalent condition for Weil-Petersson geodesics. As an application, we show the Weil-Petersson geodesic flow has compact invariant subsets with arbitrarily large topological entropy.

math.GT

Geometry and rigidity of mapping class groups

We study the large scale geometry of mapping class groups MCG(S), using hyperbolicity properties of curve complexes. We show that any self quasi-isometry of MCG(S) (outside a few sporadic cases) is a bounded distance away from a left-multiplication, and as a consequence obtain quasi-isometric rigidity for MCG(S), namely that groups quasi-isometric to MCG(S) are virtually equal to it. (The latter theorem was proved by Hamenstadt using different methods). As part of our approach we obtain several other structural results: a description of the tree-graded structure on the asymptotic cone of MCG(S); a characterization of the image of the curve-complex projection map from MCG(S) to the product of the curve complexes of essential subsurfaces of S; and a construction of Sigma-hulls in MCG(S), an analogue of convex hulls.

math.GT

Heegaard splittings with large subsurface distances

We show that sub-surfaces of a Heegaard surface for which the relative Hempel distance of the splitting is sufficiently high have to appear in any Heegaard surface of genus bounded by half that distance.

math.GT

Asymptotics of Weil-Petersson geodesics I: ending laminations, recurrence, and flows

We define an ending lamination for a Weil-Petersson geodesic ray. Despite the lack of a natural visual boundary for the Weil-Petersson metric, these ending laminations provide an effective boundary theory that encodes much of its asymptotic CAT(0) geometry. In particular, we prove an ending lamination theorem (Theorem 1.1) for the full-measure set of rays that recur to the thick part, and we show that the association of an ending lamination embeds asymptote classes of recurrent rays into the Gromov-boundary of the curve complex. As an application, we establish fundamentals of the topological dynamics of the Weil-Petersson geodesic flow, showing density of closed orbits and topological transitivity.

math.GT