Generic measures for geodesic flows on nonpositively curved manifolds (Q487737)

Let \(M\) denote a complete, connected Riemannian manifold with sectional curvature \(K\leq 0\), and let \(\Omega\) denote the nonwandering set of the geodesic flow on the unit tangent bundle \(T^{1}(M)\). We say that a vector \(v \in T^{1}(M)\) bounds a flat strip if there exists a totally geodesic, isometric immersion \(f : [0,r] \times \mathbb{R} \rightarrow M\), \(r > 0\), such that \(t \rightarrow f(0,t)\) is the geodesic in \(M\) with initial velocity \(v\). Let \(\Omega_{NF}\) denote the set of vectors in \(\Omega\) that do not bound a flat strip. We define \(\mathcal{M}^{1}(\Omega_{NF})\) to be the set of probability measures on \(\Omega_{NF}\) that are invariant under the geodesic flow. We equip \(\mathcal{M}^{1}(\Omega_{NF})\) with the topology of weak convergence. In this article, the authors prove the following. Theorem. Let \(\Omega_{NF}\) be an open subset of \(\Omega\) that contains at least three distinct periodic orbits. Then, the following subsets of \(\mathcal{M}^{1}(\Omega_{NF})\) are dense, \(G_{\delta}\) subsets: {\parindent=7mm\begin{itemize}\item[1)] The set of measures that are ergodic. \item[2)] The set of measures that are not strongly mixing. \item[3)] The set of measures that have zero measure-theoretic entropy. \end{itemize}} Remarks: {\parindent=7mm\begin{itemize}\item[1)] If the sectional curvature of \(M\) is negative, then \(\Omega_{NF} = \Omega\). If \(M\) is compact or has finite volume, then \(\Omega = T^{1}(M)\). \item[2)] Under the hypotheses of the theorem, the restriction of the geodesic flow is topologically mixing on \(\Omega_{NF} \Leftrightarrow\) the length spectrum of the geodesic flow on \(\Omega_{NF}\) is non arithmetic. \item[3)] A result of Parthasarathy shows that the weakly mixing measures on \(\Omega_{NF}\) form a dense, \(G_{\delta}\) subset of \(\mathcal{M}^{1}(\Omega_{NF})\). \item[4)] If \(M\) is compact with negative sectional curvature, then the canonical Liouville measure is ergodic, strongly mixing and has positive metric entropy. \end{itemize}} In dimension 2, the authors also prove the following theorem: Let \(M\) be a nonpositively curved compact, orientable surface with negative Euler characteristic. Then the set of ergodic measures on \(T^{1}(M)\) is a dense, \(G_{\delta}\) subset of \(\mathcal{M}(T^{1}(M)) \Leftrightarrow\) there are no flat strips on the universal cover of \(M\). The authors also construct an example where \(\Omega_{NF}\) is not open in \(\Omega\), and an example of an ergodic measure on \(\Omega = T^{1}(M)\) that is not the limit of ergodic measures on \(T^{1}(M)\).