Limits of Blaschke metrics (Q2037867)

By works of Labourie and Loftin, a convex real projective structure on a surface \(S\) is equivalent to an equivariant embedding of its universal cover into \(\mathbb{R}^3\) as a hyperbolic affine sphere. Blaschke metrics arise as differential invariants of these affine spheres. They also proved that the convex real projective structures are parametrized by the bundle of cubic differentials over Teichmüller space. In the paper under review, the authors obtain a compactification of the \(\mathrm{SL}(3,\mathbb{R})\)-Hitchin component by studying the degeneration of the Blaschke metrics on the associated equivariant affine spheres. The degeneration is in the sense that the parameters leave every compact set in the space of cubic differentials. At the same time, the authors give a description of the closure in the space of projectivized geodesic currents of the space of flat metrics induced by holomorphic cubic differentials. The techniques use an embedding of the space of Blaschke metrics into the space of geodesic currents, following recent work of the first author.