The Manhattan curve, ergodic theory of topological flows and rigidity (Q6939152)

This paper introduces and studies the Manhattan curve \(\mathcal{C}_M\) associated with a pair of left-invariant hyperbolic metrics \(d\), \(d'\) on a nonelementary hyperbolic group \(\Gamma\), both quasi-isometric to a word metric. Defined as the boundary of the set of \((a,b)\in\mathbb{R}^2\) for which the series \(\sum_{\lbrack x\rbrack} \exp(-a\ell'(x)-b\ell(x))\) converges (where \(\ell\), \(\ell'\) denote the stable translation lengths), this curve encodes the quantitative distortion between the two metrics. The authors prove that \(\mathcal{C}_M\) is always continuously differentiable and show that it is linear if and only if \(d\) and \(d'\) are \textit{roughly similar}, thereby obtaining a new rigidity criterion (Theorem~1.1). In the strongly hyperbolic case, they further prove that \(\mathcal{C}_M\) is of class \(C^2\) (Theorem~1.3).\N\NThese results are obtained through a combination of ergodic-theoretic techniques, including the construction of families of Patterson-Sullivan measures (see [\textit{M. Coornaert}, Pac. J. Math. 159, No. 2, 241--270 (1993; Zbl 0797.20029)]) depending on \((a,b)\), the analysis of the associated geodesic flows à la \textit{I. Mineyev} [Geom. Topol. 9, 403--482 (2005; Zbl 1137.37314)], multifractal analysis on the boundary and -- specifically for Theorem~1.3 -- the application of thermodynamic formalism to Cannon's automatic structure. They also recover the mean distortion \(\delta(d'/d)\) as the negative slope of \(\mathcal{C}_M\) at the origin (Theorem~3.12) and prove the inequality \(\delta(d'/d)\le v/v'\), with equality characterizing rough similarity.