Cohomological equation and cocycle rigidity of discrete parabolic actions (Q2423649)

Given a dynamical system \(T: X \rightarrow X\) and an observable \(g:X \rightarrow \mathbb C\), the \textit{cohomological equation} asks for solutions \(f: X \rightarrow \mathbb C\) so that \[ f \circ T - f= g. \] We say \(g\) is a coboundary, and note that the Birkhoff sums \(S_n g (x) = \sum_{i=0}^{n-1} g \circ T^i(x)\) along orbits of \(T\) telescope to \[ S_n g(x) = f(T^n x) - f(x). \] An important question in dynamical systems with some extra structure is to understand the regularity properties of solutions \(f\) in terms of the regularity of the coboundary \(g\). In the paper \(X = \mathrm{SL}(2, \mathbb R)/\Gamma\) or \(\mathrm{SL}(2, \mathbb R) \times \mathrm{SL}(2, \mathbb R)/ \Gamma\), where in the first case \(\Gamma\) is a lattice in \(\mathrm{SL}(2, \mathbb R)\) and in the second \(\Gamma\) is an irreducible lattice in \(\mathrm{SL}(2, \mathbb R) \times \mathrm{SL}(2, \mathbb R)\), and \(T\) is a horocycle map, a map of the form \[ h_s = \begin{pmatrix} 1 & s \\ 0 & 1 \end{pmatrix} \] in the first setting and maps of the form \[ h_s \times h_0 \text{ or } h_0 \times h_s \] in the second setting. Using Fourier analysis (representation theory) of \(\mathrm{SL}(2, \mathbb R)\), the authors obtain sharp regularity estimates on solutions of the cohomological equation, and give other important estimates and descriptions of the set of invariant distributions.