Singularity of the spectrum for smooth area-preserving flows in genus two and translation surfaces well approximated by cylinders (Q2658942)

The goal of this paper is to study smooth flows preserving a smooth invariant measure on a surface of genus \(g \geq 1\) (also known as locally Hamiltonian flows). Indeed, area-preserving flows are among the basic examples of dynamical systems. The characterizing feature of these flows makes their study equivalent to that of locally Hamiltonian flows on compact orientable surfaces. The authors show that, if the genus of the surface is two, almost every such locally Hamiltonian flow with two non-degenerate isomorphic saddles has singular spectrum. Let us remark that the study of locally Hamiltonian flows has a long history starting in the 1990s after \textit{S. P. Novikov} [Russ. Math. Surv. 37, No. 5, 1--56 (1982; Zbl 0571.58011); translation from Usp. Mat. Nauk 37, No. 5(227), 3--49 (1982)] and his school highlighted its connection with solid state physics. The paper contains a remarkable result on translation surfaces being well approximated by a single cylinder. This is used as a key technical tool in the proof of the main result, but is also of independent interest.