Orbit closures of generic unipotent flows on homogeneous spaces of \(SL(3,{\mathbb{R}})\) (Q1822642)

Let \(G=SL(3,{\mathbb{R}})\), \(\Gamma\) be a lattice in G and let \(\{\) u(t)\(\}\) be a one-parameter subgroup of G consisting of unipotent matrices such that u(t)-I has rank 2 for all \(t\neq 0\), I being the identity matrix. We show that for each \(x\in G/\Gamma\) there exists a closed subgroup F of G such that the closure of \(\{\) u(t)x\(|\) \(t\in {\mathbb{R}}\}\) is Fx and the latter admits a finite F-invariant measure; this confirms a conjecture of M. S. Raghunathan for the case at hand. As an application we get a result on simultaneous diophantine approximation of two quadratic forms in three variables.