Critical exponents of invariant random subgroups in negative curvature (Q2416539)

A useful tool in the study of discrete subgroups of a locally compact, second countable group \(G\) is the notion of invariant random subgroup: the set of closed subgroups is a compact space when endowed with the Chabauty topology, and an invariant random subgroup of \(G\) is a Borel probability measure on this space which is invariant under the conjugation action of \(G\). Important examples are measures uniformly distributed (with respect to Haar measure) on the conjugacy class of a lattice in \(G\), when they exist. Another natural example is the measure supported on a single normal subgroup of \(G\). In higher rank simple Lie groups which have Kazhdan's property (T) these and their products are the only ergodic invariant random subgroups (this follows from a theorem of \textit{G. Stuck} and \textit{R. J. Zimmer} [Ann. Math. (2) 139, No. 3, 723--747 (1994; Zbl 0836.22018)]). In rank one Lie groups there are many more examples: every uniform lattice in such a Lie group is a Gromov-hyperbolic group and as such contains many infinite normal subgroups of infinite index. In the group of isometries of real hyperbolic space there are further examples that can be constructed via differential-geometric methods (cf. [\textit{M. Abert} et al., ``On the growth of \(L^2\)-invariants of locally symmetric spaces. II: Exotic invariant random subgroups in rank one'', Preprint, \url{arXiv:1612.09510}]). Given an ergodic invariant random subgroup in a simple Lie group \(G\) it is discrete and Zariski-dense in \(G\) almost surely, assuming it is not almost surely finite-index or central in \(G\). If \(G\) is of real rank one it is of interest to establish further geometric properties of a subgroup which hold almost surely, for example the limit set is the whole boundary at infinity \(\partial X\) (where \(X\) is the Riemannian symmetric spaces associated to \(G\)) almost surely. In the present paper the authors establish properties for the behaviour for invariant random subgroups of the critical exponent \(\delta(\Gamma)\), which gives finer information about the behaviour at infinity of the orbits. The main theorem is that if \(G\) is a simple Lie group of rank one (or more generally a group of isometries of a proper Gromov-hyperbolic space \(X\) with a few natural additional hypotheses) \(\delta(\Gamma) > \dim(\partial X)/2\) for \(\mu\)-almost every \(\Gamma\), generalising a result about normal subgroups of lattices (note that for arbitrary discrete subgroups the exponent can be arbitrarily small). Furthermore the group can be of divergence type if and only if the critical exponent is maximal (equal to \(\dim(\partial X)\)).