Local Lyapunov spectrum rigidity of nilmanifold automorphisms (Q2026752)

The paper studies the local Lyapunov spectrum rigidity of Anosov automorphisms. This problem asks whether for local volume-preserving perturbations of such automorphisms it is possible to change the smooth conjugacy class without affecting the Lyapunov spectrum of volume. This bears some relation with the more classical problem of smooth rigidity under equivalent periodic data. Results about local Lyapunov spectrum rigidity have appeared recently in the works [\textit{R. Saghin} and \textit{J. Yang}, Adv. Math. 355, Article ID 106764, 45 p. (2019; Zbl 1461.37033); \textit{A. Gogolev} et al., Isr. J. Math. 238, No. 1, 389--403 (2020; Zbl 1452.37022)] for toral automorphisms. In this paper, the problem is addressed in the case of nilmanifolds under the assumption of simplicity of the Lyapunov spectrum (the condition imposed by R. Saghin and J. Yang in the toral case) and another technical condition on such spectrum that is trivially verified for the torus (the condition is named ``sorted spectrum condition'' and has to do with the order of the eigenvalues with respect to the filtration of subalgebras). Under these assumptions, the problem is solved. The main relevance of the result is that the setting it deals with incorporates some difficulties that are not present in the toral case (the most famous are the lack of integrability of center manifolds and the distortion of the coarse geometry within leaves of the foliations).