Exponential mixing and smooth classification of commuting expanding maps (Q1630361)

The authors show that genuinely higher-rank expanding actions of abelian semigroups on compact manifolds are smoothly conjugate to affine actions on infra-nilmanifolds. \par Here, a nilmanifold is a compact quotient of a connected simply-connected nilpotent Lie group by a discrete subgroup, and an infra-nilmanifold is a compact manifold admitting a finite nilmanifold covering. Based on the work [\textit{M. Shub}, Proc. Sympos. Pure Math. 14, 273--276 (1970; Zbl 0213.50302)], \textit{M. Gromov} proved in [Publ. Math., Inst. Hautes Étud. Sci. 53, 53--78 (1981; Zbl 0474.20018)] that every expanding map on a compact manifold is topologically conjugate to an affine infra-nilendomorphism. The main result of the paper (Theorem 1.2) states that, on a compact manifold $M$, for a smooth $\mathbb Z^k_+$ action $\rho$ (where $k\geq2$) that is genuinely of higher rank (namely, for all finite index sub-semigroups $Z$ of $\mathbb Z^k$, no continuous quotient of any finite extension of the $Z$ action factors thourgh a finite extension of a $\mathbb Z_+$ action) and contains an expanding map $\rho(a)$ for some $a\in\mathbb Z^k_+$, $M$ is diffeomorphic to an infra-nilmanifold and $\rho$ is smoothly conjugate to a $\mathbb Z^k_+$ action by affine nilendomorphisms. The crucial point in the proof is an exponential mixing of solenoid actions induced from semigroup actions by nilmanifold endomorphisms (Theorem 1.3).