Small eigenvalues of the Laplacian for algebraic measures in moduli space, and mixing properties of the Teichmüller flow (Q363344): Difference between revisions

The Teichmüller geodesic flow on the moduli space of quadratic differentials is an important naturally occurring example of a non-uniformly hyperbolic dynamical system, and has been the object of a significant amount of recent study. In particular, the mixing properties of the flow, and the related questions of the spectral properties of the larger \(\text{SL}(2, \mathbb R)\) action on the space of quadratic differentials have been studied closely by, among others, Avila-Gouëzel-Yoccoz, Avila-Resende, and many others. In this paper, the authors make progress towards answering a question of Yoccoz, who asked for which \(\text{SL}(2, \mathbb R)\)-invariant measures does the analog of the Ramanujan conjecture hold- that is, when does the spectrum for the foliated hyperbolic Laplacian associated to the invariant measure have no eigenvalues between 0 and \(1/4\)? The main result of this paper is that for all algebraic invariant measures (that is, invariant measures supported on algebraic submanifolds of the moduli space), for any \(\delta >0\), there are only finitely many eigenvalues in \((0, \frac 1 4 - \delta)\). Combining this with recent results of Eskin-Mirzakhani, which show that all \(\text{SL}(2, \mathbb R)\) measures are algebraic, this result shows that the essential part of the spectrum for any \(\text{SL}(2, \mathbb R)\)-invariant measure is in \([1/4, \infty)\). In particular this shows that exponential mixing of the Teichmüller flow holds for any \(\text{SL}(2, \mathbb R)\)-invariant measure.