Effective equidistribution of twisted horocycle flows and horocycle maps (Q730362)

Understanding the precise behavior of horocycle (unipotent) flows \(h_t\) on hyperbolic surfaces \(\mathbb{H}^2/\Gamma\) via renormalization by geodesic (diagonal) flows is an important area of study in dynamics, with applications to number theory and geometry. From results of \textit{S. G. Dani} [Invent. Math. 64, 357--385 (1981; Zbl 0498.58013)], non-periodic horocycles equidistribute with respect to Haar measure, which leads naturally to the question of the effectiveness of this convergence. The paper under review gives a very general framework to give highly effective bounds on twisted ergodic averages \[ \int_{0}^T e^{i\lambda t} f(h_t x) dt \] of horocycle orbits, with applications to understanding averages along various subsequences, including sparse subsequences, and further, applications to get bounds on he Fourier coefficients of cusp forms comparable to the best known bounds obtained via analysis and number theory. The methods, which have been used by the authors in many situations, involve understanding the solutions to the cohomological equation and the spaces of invariant distributions for twisted horocycle flows.