Non-autonomous curves on surfaces (Q2046804)

This paper is part of a broader investigation of the properties of a Hamiltonian diffeomorphism \(g \in \mathrm{Ham}(\Sigma)\) on a symplectic surface \(\Sigma\) using its action on embedded curves. Loosely speaking, the main goal is to exhibit the chaotic behaviour of any Hamiltonian diffeomorphism that maps a curve \(L\) to a suitably chosen curve \(L'\) which is Hamiltonian isotopic to \(L\). For the first main result (Theorem 1), one considers an arbitrary compact connected symplectic surface with an essential simple closed curve \(L\), i.e., \(L\) is not contractible (to a point or a puncture) or isotopic to a boundary component. Then, for any lower bound \(h_0\), it is shown that one can pick a curve \(L'\) such that if \(g \in \mathrm{Ham}(\Sigma)\) satisfies \(g(L)=L'\), then the topological entropy of \(g\) is at least \(h_0\). In the second main result (Theorem 3), it is shown that if \(\Sigma\) is an annulus and \(L\) is a union of two chords, we can pick \(L'\) so that \(g \in \mathrm{Ham}(\Sigma)\) must be far from being autonomous (for the Hofer metric) in order to map \(L\) to \(L'\). These two results are proved in Sections 3 and 4, respectively. They rely heavily on certain quasimorphisms on \(\mathrm{Ham}(\Sigma)\) studied in [\textit{M. Brandenbursky} and \textit{M. Marcinkowski}, J. Mod. Dyn. 15, 143--163 (2019; Zbl 1443.37021); \textit{M. Entov} and \textit{L. Polterovich}, Int. Math. Res. Not. 2003, No. 30, 1635--1676 (2003; Zbl 1047.53055)].