Homological shadows of attracting laminations (Q1784004)

For a free group \(F_n\) and a fully irreducible automorphism \(f\in\mathrm{Aut}(F_n)\) whose action on \(H_1(F_n;\mathbb{Z})\) has finite order, the author introduces a homological version of the attracting lamination of \(f\), together with a measure supported at a single point. More precisely, for any \(x\in F_n\) with infinite \(f\)-orbit and any \(k\geq \mathbb{Z}_+\), the author takes the reduced word \(f^k(x)\in F_n\), and its induced (constant speed) path \(\tilde{S}f^k(x):[0,1]\to H_1(F_n;\mathbb{R})\cong \mathbb{R}^n\) in homology. Let \(\tilde{S}_kf^k(x)\) be the the \(\frac{1}{k}\)-scaling of \(\tilde{S}f^k(x)\), and let \(S_kf^k(x)\) be the image of \(\tilde{S}_kf^k(x)\). Then the author proves that there exists a convex polytope \(S_{\infty}f\subset H_1(F_n;\mathbb{R})\) with rational vertices, such that \[ \lim_{k\to \infty}S_kf^k(x)=S_{\infty}f \] in the Hausdorff topology. Moreover, for the standard Lebesgue measure \(\lambda\) on \([0,1]\), its push forward by \(\tilde{S}_kf^k(x)\) provides a measure \(D_kf^k(x)=(\tilde{S}_kf^k(x))_*\lambda\) on \(H_1(F_n;\mathbb{R})\). Then the author proves that there exists a probability measure \(D_{\infty}f\) on \(H_1(F_n;\mathbb{R})=\mathbb{R}^n\) supported at a point in \(\mathbb{Q}[\rho]^n\), such that \[ \lim_{k\to \infty}D_kf^k(x)=D_{\infty}f \] in the weak-\(*\) topology. Here \(\rho\in \mathbb{R}_+\) is the dilatation of \(f\). The pair \((S_{\infty}f, D_{\infty}f)\) is a homological version of \textit{M. Bestvina} et al.'s work [Geom. Funct. Anal. 7, No. 2, 215--244 (1997; Zbl 0884.57002)] on attracting laminations of fully irreducible automorphisms on free groups. So \((S_{\infty}f, D_{\infty}f)\) is called the attracting homological lamination of \(f\) (homological shadow of the attracting lamination). The proof essentially uses the fact that any fully irreducible automorphism \(f\) of a free group \(F_n\) has a train track representation \(\phi:G\to G\) (a continuous self-map on a graph \(G\) with nice properties with respect to \(\phi\)), and the transition matrix of \(\phi\) is Perron-Frobenius. The author first uses the half point graph \(HP_{\phi}\) of \(\phi\) and its variation to prove the existence of some version of attracting homological lamination and probability measure on \(\mathbb{R}^{E(G)}\), then he proves that the projection of the attracting homological lamination and probability measure on \(\mathbb{R}^{E(G)}\) provides the desired objects on \(H_1(F_n;\mathbb{R})\).