Lyapunov exponents for surface group representations (Q500051)

Consider an orientable topological surface \(S\) with \(n\) punctures, genus \(g\) and negative Euler characteristic. Let \(G\) denote the fundamental group of \(S\) with respect to a marked point. Next, consider a holomorphic family \((\rho_\lambda)_{\lambda\in \Lambda}\) of non-elementary parabolic representations of \(G\) into \(\mathrm{PSL}(2,\mathbb C)\). In other words, every representation depends holomorphically in \(\lambda\) and defines a homeomorphism from \(G\) to \(\mathrm{PSL}(2,\mathbb C)\) sending peripheral curves to parabolic transformations. It is also assumed that \((\rho_\lambda)_{\lambda\in \Lambda}\) is a non-trivial family and there exists \(\lambda_0\in \Lambda\) so that \(\rho_{\lambda_0}\) acts faithfully. The main purpose of this paper is to study the bifurcation locus of the family under the above setting. The study relies on the construction of \((1,1)\) positive closed currents arising from random walks on \(G\), as previously developed by the authors in [Invent. Math. 190, 57--118 (2012; Zbl 1337.37033)] when \(G\) is a finitely generated group. To this end, the surface \(S\) is first provided with a conformal structure \(X\) of a compact Riemann surface of finite type endowed with a hyperbolic metric of negative curvature. The first main result is the construction of the Lyapunov exponent \(\chi_{\text{Brown}} (\rho)\) associated to a representation \(\rho\) acting on classes of closed Brownian paths over \(X\) (Proposition A). From here, the Lyapunov exponent function \(\lambda\mapsto \chi_{\text{Brown}}(\rho_\lambda)\) is defined and shown to be plurisubharmonic, thus \(dd^c(\chi_{\text{Brown}}(\rho_\lambda))\) defines a current \(T_{\text{Bif},\lambda}\) in \(\Lambda\). Theorem B establishes that the support of \(T_{\text{Bif},\lambda}\) coincides with the bifurcation locus of the holomorphic family. Both results are strongly based on a discretization process of Brownian motion (compare with [\textit{T.~Lyons} and \textit{D.~Sullivan}, J.~Diff.~Geom. 19, 299--323 (1984 Zbl 0554.58022)]) which provides an estimate of moment for the discretized measure. In addition, the authors present several equidistribution results independent from their previous work. Since the universal cover of \(X\) is conformally equivalent to the upper half plane with marked point at \(0\), the fundamental group \(G\) is then isomorphic to a group lattice \(\Gamma\) in \(\mathrm{PSL}(2,\mathbb R)\). Let \((\gamma_n)\) be a random divergent sequence of closed geodesics and fix a parabolic representation \(\rho\in \text{Hom}(G,\mathrm{ PSL}(2,\mathbb C))\). Theorem D establishes that under some extra conditions on the divergence of \(\gamma_n\), the quotient \(\log|\text{tr}^2(\rho(\gamma_n))|/ (2\cdot\text{length}(\gamma_n))\) converges almost surely to the Lyapunov exponent \(\chi_{\text{Brown}}(\rho)\) as \(n\to \infty\). If \(\Lambda\) parametrizes a family of parabolic representations of \(G\) into \(\mathrm{PSL}(2,\mathbb C)\) then the subvariety in \(\Lambda\) defined by \(\text{tr}^2(\rho_\lambda(\gamma_n))=t\) for some \(t\in \mathbb C\), defines a random hypersurface. Their equidistribution in parameter space is described in Theorem C by showing the quotient between the integration currents of the hypersurfaces and \(2\cdot\text{length}(\gamma_n)\) converge to \(T_{\text{Bif},\lambda}\) as \(n\to \infty\) in the weak sense of currents. The paper has been carefully written and provides a reasonable introduction to Brownian motions on hyperbolic Riemann surfaces, in addition to a summary of the results established in the preceding article by the same authors.