Flatness of Gaussian curvature and area of ideal triangles

Let M be aC ^k ,k 4, compact surface of genus greater than two whose curvature is negative in all points but along a simple closed geodesic (t) where the curvature is zero at every point. We show that the area of ideal triangles having a lifting of as an edge is infinite. This provides a family of surfaces having ideal triangles of infinite area whose geodesic flows are equivalent to Anosov flows, in contrast with the well-known examples of surfaces with flat strips which also have ideal triangles of infinite area. By the CAT-comparison theory we can deduce, using these surfaces as models, that aC compact surface of non-positive curvature having one geodesic along which the curvature is zero has ideal triangles of infinite area.Partially supported by CNPq of Brazilian Government     

Unique ergodicity of horospheric foliations revisited

With each rational function on the Riemann sphere, Lyubich–Minsky construction (1997) associates an abstract topological space called the quotient hyperbolic lamination. The latter space carries the so-called vertical geodesic flow with Anosov property. Its unstable foliation is what we call the quotient horospheric lamination. We consider the case of hyperbolic rational function, and more generally, functions postcritically finite on the Julia set without parabolics, that do not belong to the following list of exceptions: powers, Chebyshev polynomials and Latt‘es examples. In this case the quotient horospheric lamination is known to be minimal, while restricted to the union of nonisolated hyperbolic leaves (Glutsyuk, 2007). In the present paper we prove its unique ergodicity. To this end, we introduce the so-called transversely contracting flows and homeomorphisms (on abstract compact metrizable topological spaces), which include the vertical geodesic flows under consideration and the usual Anosov flows and diffeomorphisms. We prove a version of our unique ergodicity result for the transversely contracting flows and homeomorphisms. Particular cases for Anosov flows and diffeomorphisms are given by classical results by Bowen, Marcus, Furstenberg, Margulis, et al. We give a new and purely geometric proof, which seems to be simpler than the classical ones (which use either Markov partitions, K-property, or harmonic analysis).     

On the Dynamics of Uniform Finsler Manifolds of Negative Flag Curvature

The geodesic flow of a compact Finsler manifold with negative flag curvature is an Anosov flow [23]. We use the structure of the stable and unstable foliation to equip the geodesic ray boundary of the universal covering with a Hölder structure. Gromov's geodesic rigidity and the Theorem of Dinaburg--Manning on the relation between the topological entropy and the volume entropy are generalized to the case of Finsler manifolds.     

Sur l'homologie de cycles géodésiques dans des variétés hyperboliques compactes

The notion of an l-geodesic cycle in a compact hyperbolic n-manifold M generalises, in dimension l, the one of a closed geodesic. In this Note we show that when l ≥n/2, such a cycle lifts to a finite cover of M as an embedded totally geodesic submanifold non zero homologous. It enables us to prove that the compact hyperbolic manifolds constructed by Gromov and Piateski-Shapiro (see [4]) have infinite virtual Betti numbers and to give a new proof of the same fact for the compact arithmetic hyperbolic manifolds constructed by Borel in [3].     

Kähler hyperbolicity and the Euler number of a compact manifold with geodesic flow of Anosov type

 Let M be a 2m-dimensional compact Riemannian manifold with Anosov geodesic flow. We prove that every closed bounded k form, k≥2, on the universal covering of M is d(bounded). Further, if M is homotopy equivalent to a compact K?hler manifold, then its Euler number χ(M) satisfies (−1) ^m χ(M)>0. Received: 25 September 2001 / Published Online: 16 October 2002     

General curvature estimates for stable H-surfaces immersed into a space form

In this paper, we give general curvature estimates for constant mean curvature surfaces immersed into a simply-connected 3-dimensional space form. We obtain bounds on the norm of the traceless second fundamental form and on the Gaussian curvature at the center of a relatively compact stable geodesic ball (and, more generally, of a relatively compact geodesic ball with stability operator bounded from below). As a by-product, we show that the notions of weak and strong Morse indices coincide for complete non-compact constant mean curvature surfaces. We also derive a geometric proof of the fact that a complete stable surface with constant mean curvature 1 in the usual hyperbolic space must be a horosphere.     

Ergodic measures of geodesic flows on compact Lie groups

Let Ψ be the geodesic flow associated with a two-sided invariant metric on a compact Lie group. In this paper, we prove that every ergodic measure μ of Ψ is supported on the unit tangent bundle of a flat torus. As an application, all Lyapunov exponents of μ are zero hence μ is not hyperbolic. Our underlying manifolds have nonnegative curvature (possibly strictly positive on some sections), whereas in contrast, all geodesic flows related to negative curvature are Anosov hence every ergodic measure is hyperbolic.     

Partially hyperbolic geodesic flows

We construct a category of examples of partially hyperbolic geodesic flows which are not Anosov, deforming the metric of a compact locally symmetric space of nonconstant negative curvature. Candidates for such an example as the product metric and locally symmetric spaces of nonpositive curvature with rank bigger than one are not partially hyperbolic. We prove that if a metric of nonpositive curvature has a partially hyperbolic geodesic flow, then its rank is one. Other obstructions to partial hyperbolicity of a geodesic flow are also analyzed.     

On the Existence of Focal Points near Closed Geodesics on Surfaces

We establish some criteria for the existence or nonexistence of focal points near closed geodesics on surfaces. These criteria are in terms of the curvature of the manifold along the closed geodesic and the average values of the partial derivatives of the curvature in the direction perpendicular to the geodesic. Our criteria lead to a new family of examples of surfaces with no focal points. We also show that if S is a compact surface with no focal points and an inequality relating the curvature of the surface to the curvature of the horocycles holds, then the horocycles (considered as curves in S) are uniformly C ^2+Lipschitz.     

Weakly Hyperbolic Actions of Kazhdan Groups on Tori

We study the ergodic and rigidity properties of weakly hyperbolic actions. First, we establish ergodicity for C² volume preserving weakly hyperbolic group actions on closed manifolds. For the integral action generated by a single Anosov diffeomorphism this theorem is classical and originally due to Anosov. Motivated by the Franks/Manning classification of Anosov diffeomorphisms on tori, we restrict our attention to weakly hyperbolic actions on the torus. When the acting group is a lattice subgroup of a semisimple Lie group with no compact factors and all (almost) simple factors of real rank at least two, we show that weak hyperbolicity in the original action implies weak hyperbolicity for the induced action on the fundamental group. As a corollary, we obtain that any such action on the torus is continuously semiconjugate to the affine action coming from the fundamental group via a map unique in the homotopy class of the identity. Under the additional assumption that some partially hyperbolic group element has quasi-isometrically embedded lifts of unstable leaves to the universal cover, we obtain a conjugacy, resulting in a continuous classification for these actions. Partially funded by VIGRE grant DMS-9977371 Received: January 2005 Revision: August 2005 Accepted: September 2005     

Existence and Topological Uniqueness of Compact CMC Hypersurfaces with Boundary in Hyperbolic Space

It is proved that if Γ is a compact, embedded hypersurface in a totally geodesic hypersurface ? ⁿ of ? ⁿ⁺¹ satisfying the enclosing H-hypersphere condition with |H|<1, then there is one and only one (up to a reflection on ? ⁿ ) compact embedded constant mean curvature H hypersurface M such that ?M=Γ. Moreover, M is diffeomorphic to a ball.     

Nonexistence of codimension one Anosov flows on compact manifolds with boundary

A flow is Anosov if it exhibits contracting and expanding directions forming with the flow a continuous tangent bundle decomposition. An Anosov flow is codimension one if its contracting or expanding direction is one-dimensional. Examples of codimension one Anosov flows on compact boundaryless manifolds can be exhibited in any dimension ?3. In this paper, we prove that there are no codimension one Anosov flows on compact manifolds with boundary. The proof uses an extension to flows of some results in Hirsch [On Invariant Subsets of Hyperbolic Sets, Essays on Topology and Related Topics, Memoires dédiés à Georges de Rham, 1970, pp. 126-135] related to Question 10(b) in Palis and Pugh [Fifty problems in dynamical systems, in: J. Palis, C.C. Pugh (Eds.), Dynamical Systems-Warwick 1974 (Proc. Sympos. Appl. Topology and Dynamical Systems, Univ. Warwick, Coventry, 1973/1974; presented to E.C. Zeeman on his fiftieth birthday), Lecture Notes in Mathematics, vol. 468, Springer, Berlin, 1975, pp. 345-353].     

Geometric Anosov flows of dimension 5

We show that for a smooth Anosov flow on a closed five dimensional manifold, if it has C^∞ Anosov splitting and preserves a C^∞ pseudo-Riemannian metric, then up to a special time change and finite covers, it is C^∞ flow equivalent either to the suspension of a symplectic hyperbolic automorphism of $\text{T}{}^4$, or to the geodesic flow on a three dimensional hyperbolic manifold. To cite this article: Y. Fang, C. R. Acad. Sci. Paris, Ser. I 336 (2003).     

C k-rigidity for hyperbolic flows II

In this note we prove the following result: Any conjugating homeomorphism between two geodesic flows for compact negatively curved compactC ^∞ surfaces is necessarilyC ^∞. This extends a result of Feldman and Ornstein. We also discuss some related results for hyperbolic flows and diffeomorphisms.     

On compact splitting complex submanifolds of quotients of bounded symmetric domains

We study compact complex submanifolds S of quotient manifolds X = ?/Γ of irreducible bounded symmetric domains by torsion free discrete lattices of automorphisms, and we are interested in the characterization of the totally geodesic submanifolds among compact splitting complex submanifolds S ? X, i.e., under the assumption that the tangent sequence over S splits holomorphically. We prove results of two types. The first type of results concerns S ? X which are characteristic complex submanifolds, i.e., embedding ? as an open subset of its compact dual manifold M by means of the Borel embedding, the non-zero(1, 0)-vectors tangent to S lift under a local inverse of the universal covering map π : ? → X to minimal rational tangents of M.We prove that a compact characteristic complex submanifold S ? X is necessarily totally geodesic whenever S is a splitting complex submanifold. Our proof generalizes the case of the characterization of totally geodesic complex submanifolds of quotients of the complex unit ball Bnobtained by Mok(2005). The proof given here is however new and it is based on a monotonic property of curvatures of Hermitian holomorphic vector subbundles of Hermitian holomorphic vector bundles and on exploiting the splitting of the tangent sequence to identify the holomorphic tangent bundle TSas a quotient bundle rather than as a subbundle of the restriction of the holomorphic tangent bundle TXto S. The second type of results concerns characterization of total geodesic submanifolds among compact splitting complex submanifolds S ? X deduced from the results of Aubin(1978)and Yau(1978) which imply the existence of K¨ahler-Einstein metrics on S ? X. We prove that compact splitting complex submanifolds S ? X of sufficiently large dimension(depending on ?) are necessarily totally geodesic. The proof relies on the Hermitian-Einstein property of holomorphic vector bundles associated to TS,which implies that endomorphisms of such bundles are parallel, and the construction of endomorphisms of these vector bundles by means of the splitting of the tangent sequence on S. We conclude with conjectures on the sharp lower bound on dim(S) guaranteeing total geodesy of S ? X for the case of the type-I domains of rank2 and the case of type-IV domains, and examine a case which is critical for both conjectures, i.e., on compact complex surfaces of quotients of the 4-dimensional Lie ball, equivalently the 4-dimensional type-I domain dual to the Grassmannian of 2-planes in C~4.     

Zeta functions and analyticity of metric entropy for anosov systems

In this note we shall give an alternative proof, using generalized zeta functions, of a theorem of Contreras that the metric entropy of aC ^ω Anosov diffeomorphism or flow has a real analytic dependence on perturbations.     

Compact symplectic solvmanifolds not admitting complex structures

In this paper the authors exhibit a family of 4-dimensional compact solvemanifolds. Each member M ³(k) of the family possesses all of the topological properties of a compact Kähler manifold, yet M ³(k) can have no complex structure. The proof uses Kodaira's classification of compact surfaces.     

Non-hyperbolic surfaces having all ideal triangles with finite area

We construct examples ofC ³ compact surfaces of non-positive curvature having non-Anosov geodesic flows and satisfying the following property: there existsL>0 such that the area of every ideal triangle in the universal covering of the surface is bounded above byL.Partially supported by CNPq of Brazilian Government     

A General Existence Theorem for Embedded Minimal Surfaces with Free Boundary

In this paper, we prove a general existence theorem for properly embedded minimal surfaces with free boundary in any compact Riemannian 3‐manifold M with boundary ?M. These minimal surfaces are either disjoint from ?M or meet ?M orthogonally. The main feature of our result is that there is no assumptions on the curvature of M or convexity of ?M. We prove the boundary regularity of the minimal surfaces at their free boundaries. Furthermore, we define a topological invariant, the filling genus, for compact 3‐manifolds with boundary and show that we can bound the genus of the minimal surface constructed above in terms of the filling genus of the ambient manifold M. Our proof employs a variant of the min‐max construction used by Colding and De Lellis on closed embedded minimal surfaces, which were first developed by Almgren and Pitts.© 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Artin Billiard: Exponential Decay of Correlation Functions

The hyperbolic Anosov C-systems have an exponential instability of their trajectories and as such represent the most natural chaotic dynamical systems. The C-systems defined on compact surfaces of the Lobachevsky plane of constant negative curvature are especially interesting. An example of such a system was introduced in a brilliant article published in 1924 by the mathematician Emil Artin. The dynamical system is defined on the fundamental region of the Lobachevsky plane, which is obtained by identifying points congruent with respect to the modular group, the discrete subgroup of the Lobachevsky plane isometries. The fundamental region in this case is a hyperbolic triangle. The geodesic trajectories of the non-Euclidean billiard are bounded to propagate on the fundamental hyperbolic triangle. Here, we present Artin’s results, calculate the correlation functions/observables defined on the phase space of the Artin billiard, and show that the correlation functions decay exponentially with time. We use the Artin symbolic dynamics, differential geometry, and the group theory methods of Gelfand and Fomin.