A spectral gap theorem in simple Lie groups (Q328670)

A Borel probability measure \(\mu\) on a connected compact simple Lie group \(G\) induces an averaging operator \(T_{\mu}\) on the space of mean-zero square-integrable functions on \(G\) via \[ T_{\mu}f(x) = \int_G f(xg) \mu(dg). \] If \(T_{\mu}\) has spectral radius strictly less than one, then \(\mu\) is said to have a spectral gap. The first main result of the paper under review states that if \(\mu\) is symmetric, then this property is equivalent to \(\mu\) being almost Diophantine, in the sense that high convolution powers of \(\mu\) give exponentially small mass to exponentially small neighbourhoods of proper closed subgroups. The second main result provides a class of examples for almost Diophantine probability measures \(\mu\). For these \(\mu\), the support \(\mathrm {supp}(\mu)\) generates a dense subgroup of \(G\), and with respect to a fixed basis of the Lie algebra of \(G\), for any \(g \in \mathrm {supp}(\mu)\) the matrix elements of \(\mathrm {Ad}(g)\) are algebraic. The proof builds on techniques from the proof, due to \textit{J. Bourgain} and \textit{A. Gamburd}, in the case \(G = \mathrm {SU}(2)\) [Invent. Math. 171, No. 1, 83--121 (2008; Zbl 1135.22010)] and on the discretized Product Theorem of the second author [Geom. Funct. Anal. 25, No. 3, 915--941 (2015; Zbl 1321.22013)], whose application to the present context relies on, among other results, Tao's non-commutative Balog-Szemerédi-Gowers Lemma.