The circle problem on surfaces of variable negative curvature (Q676838)

The authors consider a free group \(\Gamma\) acting as a convex cocompact group of isometries on a simply connected manifold \(X\) of bounded negative curvature. For a fixed point \(p\in X\) they show that the number \(N(t)\) of points from the \(\Gamma\)-orbit \(\Gamma_p\) of \(p\) contained in the ball of radius \(t>0\) about \(p\), is asymptotic to \(ce^{ht}\) as \(t\to \infty\), where \(h>0\) is the topological entropy of the geodesic flow over \(X/ \Gamma\). The proof is based on symbolic dynamics: The function on \(\Gamma\) which associates to \(g \in \Gamma\) the distance between \(p\) and \(gp\) can be extended to a Hölder continuous function on the subshift of finite type representing the action of \(\Gamma\) on the space of (possibly infinite) reduced words in a fixed set of generators. The result is then derived from standard results about spectral properties for Ruelle transfer operators via an analysis of the poles of the meromorphic extension of the Poincaré series for \(\Gamma\).