Real analytic metrics on \(S ^{2}\) with total absence of finite blocking (Q376277)

When a smooth compact Riemannian manifold \(M\) is endowed with a negatively curved metric, its geodesic flow is known to be chaotic. In particular, its Liouville measure is ergodic. The authors study another property of chaos, namely the notion of insecurity. Given \((x,y)\in M^2\), a set \(P\) is a blocking set for \((x,y)\) if all geodesics joining \(x\) to \(y\) will intersect \(P\). A metric is totally insecure if for all pairs \((x,y)\in M^2\), there exists no finite blocking set. Negatively curved manifolds are totally insecure. Surprisingly there exist metrics on the sphere \(S^2\) or on \(P^2(\mathbb R)\) having such properties. The main result of the paper is the following theorem. Theorem: If \(S\) is a compact surface with a real analytic differentiable structure, then there exist real analytic metrics on \(S\) for which \(S\) is totally insecure. Such a result is particularly interesting when \(S\) is a sphere \(S^2\) or \(P^2(\mathbb{R})\). It was only known before that examples of \(C^1\)-metrics due to Ossermann satisfied this property. The analytic metrics in the paper are obtained as in [\textit{K. Burns} and \textit{M. Gerber}, Ergodic Theory Dyn. Syst. 9, No. 1, 19--25 (1989; Zbl 0645.58034)], by gluing spherical disks, or caps, on a hyperbolic pair of pants, in an analytic way. The main step of the proof is to establish the existence of a closed geodesic \(\rho\) on \(M\) such that for all \((x,y)\) in \(M^2\), there exist infinitely many geodesics \(\gamma_n\) from \(x\) to \(y\), with length going to infinity, which stay in a very small neighbourhood of \(\rho\), except during a bounded amount of time at the beginning and the end, to go from \(x\) to \(\rho\), and from \(\rho\) to \(y\). The technical relevant tool is a good notion of stable and unstable cone fields at all points except the boundary between the hyperbolic pair of pants and the caps. It allows to construct a field of stable and unstable directions with good continuity properties, and to deduce the above result from the continuity property of these stable and unstable fields.