Entropy and escape of mass for SL\(_3(\mathbb{Z})\backslash\) SL\(_3 (\mathbb{R})\) (Q1760401)

In order to understand possible weak-* limits \(\mu\) of a family \(\{\mu_i\}_{i=1}^{\infty}\) of invariant (Borel) probability measures for a transformation \(T\) on a non-compact topological space \(X\), it is important to understand the possibilities for escape of mass, that is, the mass \(\mu\) given to neighborhoods of the complements of compact sets in \(X\). In this paper, sharp estimates for escape of mass in terms of entropies of invariant measures are given in the setting of the space of unimodular lattices in \(\mathbb R^3\), \(X = \mathrm{SL}(3, \mathbb R)/\mathrm{SL}(3, \mathbb Z)\), and \(T\) is given by multiplication by the matrix \(\text{diag}(e^{1/2}, e^{1/2}, e^{-1})\). In particular, a corollary of the main result is that if the entropy of \(\mu_i\) is uniformly bounded below by \(c\) (\(h_{\mu_i}(T) \geq c\)), then the total mass of any weak-* limit \(\mu\) is at least \(c-2\). Note that the maximal measure-theoretic entropy for \(T\) is \(3\), so the lower bound in that setting is sharp.