Marked length spectrum rigidity from rigidity on subsets

DOI10.1093/IMRN/RNAF351MaRDI QIDQ6881055zbMATH OpenFDO

Authors Stephen Cantrell, Eduardo Oregón-Reyes

Publication date 18 December 2025

Published in IMRN. International Mathematics Research Notices (Search for Journal in Brave)

Copyright license Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International

Full work available at URL https://doi.org/10.1093/IMRN/RNAF351

coarse geometry distanse-like functions growth rate hyperbolic groups Manhattan curves marked length spectrum rigidity word metrics

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Geometric group theory (20F65) Hyperbolic groups and nonpositively curved groups (20F67) Orbit growth in dynamical systems (37C35) Dynamical systems of geometric origin and hyperbolicity (geodesic and horocycle flows, etc.) (37D40) Lipschitz and coarse geometry of metric spaces (51F30) Hyperbolic and elliptic geometries (general) and generalizations (51M10) Global geometric and topological methods (à la Gromov); differential geometric analysis on metric spaces (53C23)

Review text

In this paper, the authors introduce a new method for studying length spectrum rigidity problems based on a combination of ideas from dynamical systems and geometric group theory. This allows us to compare the marked length spectrum of metrics and distance-like functions coming from various geometric origins. A number of concise proofs of well-known length spectrum rigidity results are provided by using authors' new perspective and the results are extending classical results to a variety of new settings. The methods rely on studying Manhattan curves and a coarse geometric analogue of Teichmüller space equipped with a symmetrized version of the Thurston metric.\N\NIn what follows, let \(\Gamma\) be a non-elementary hyperbolic group and let \(\mathbf{conj}\) denote the set of conjugacy classes. Denote by \(D_\Gamma\) the collection of pseudo metrics on \(\Gamma\) that are Gromov hyperbolic, \(\Gamma\)-invariant and quasi-isometric to a word metric for a finite generating set. In this context, we say that \(d\), \(d_\ast \in D_\Gamma\) are roughly similar if there exist \(C\), \(\tau > 0\) such that \(|d(x, y) - \tau d_\ast(x, y)| \leq C\) for all \(x, y \in \Gamma\) and if in addition, \(\tau = 1\), we say that \(d\), \(d_\ast\) are roughly isometric.\N\NIf \(d \in D_\Gamma\) and \([x] \in \mathbf{conj}\) is the conjugacy class of \(x \in \Gamma\), then we consider the quantity \N\[\N\ell_d [x] = \lim_{n \to \infty} \frac{d(o, x^n)}{n},\N\]\Nwhere \(o \in \Gamma\) is the identity element. This number is well-defined for every \([x] \in \mathbf{conj}\) and the function \(\ell_d : \mathbf{conj} \to \mathbb{R}\) is the (stable) translation length of \(d\). Given \(d \in D_\Gamma\), the exponential growth rate of \(E \subset \mathbf{conj}\) with respect to \(d\) is the non-negative number \N\[\N\nu_d (E) = \limsup_{T \to \infty} \frac{1}{T} \log (\sharp \{ [x] \in E : \ell_d [x] \leq T \}).\N\]\NThe exponential growth rate of \(d\) is \(\nu_d = \nu_d(\mathbf{conj})\). Marked length spectrum rigidity holds for pseudo metrics belonging to \(D_\Gamma\) in the following sense: if \(d\), \(d_\ast \in D_\Gamma\), then they are roughly isometric if and only if \(\ell_d [x] = \ell_{d_\ast} [x]\) for every \([x] \in \mathbf{conj}\).\N\NOne of the key tools are Manhattan curves, that is, given a pair of pseudo metrics \(d\), \(d_\ast \in D_\Gamma\), its Manhattan curve is defined as the boundary of the convex set \N\[\N\mathcal{C}^M_{d_\ast/d} = \left \{ (a, b) \in \mathbb{R}^2 : \sum_{x \in \Gamma} e^{-a d_\ast (o, x) - b d(o, x)} < \infty \right \}.\N\]\NThis curve is parameterised by a function \(\theta_{d_\ast/d} : \mathbb{R} \to \mathbb{R}\), that is, for fixed \(a \in \mathbb{R}\), \(\theta_{d_\ast/d}(a)\) is the abscissa of convergence of the above sum as \(b\) varies. It is known that for \(d\), \(d_\ast \in D_\Gamma\), (1) \(\theta_{d_\ast/d}\) is convex and \(C^1\), (2) \(\theta_{d_\ast/d}\) goes through the points \((0, \nu_d)\) and \((\nu_{d_\ast}, 0)\) and is a straight line between these points if and only if \(d\), \(d_\ast\) are roughly similar, (3) we have that \N\[\N-\theta'_{d_\ast/d} (\nu_{d_\ast}) \leq \frac{\nu_d}{\nu_{d_\ast}} \leq - \theta'_{d_\ast/d}(0)\N\]\Nand both equalities occur if and only if \(d\) and \(d_\ast\) are roughly similar and (4) \(d\), \(d_\ast\) are roughly similar if and only if they have proportional marked length spectra.\N\NIn this paper, a number of general results and their applications are given. One of the general results about marked length spectrum rigidity from rigidity on subsets is as follows. There exists a function \(\beta : D_\Gamma \times D_\Gamma \to \mathbb{R}_{\geq 0}\) such that for any pair \(d\), \(d_\ast \in D_\Gamma\) of pseudo metrics with exponential growth rates \(\nu_d\), \(\nu_{d_\ast} > 0\), the following are equivalent: (1) there exists \(x \in \Gamma\) such that \(\nu_d \ell_d [x] \neq \nu_{d_\ast} \ell_{d_\ast} [x]\) and (2) \(\beta (d, d_\ast) > 0\). Furthermore, when either (hence both) of these conditions are satisfied we have \(\nu_d (E) \leq \nu_d - \beta (d, d_\ast)\) for any function \(f : \mathbb{R} \to \mathbb{R}_{\geq 0}\) such that \(f(t) = o(t)\) as \(t \to \infty\) and any subset \(E \subset \mathbf{conj}\) for which \(|\nu_d \ell_d [x] - \nu_{d_\ast} \ell_{d_\ast} [x]| \leq f(\ell_d [x])\) for all \([x] \in E\).\N\NOne of the applications of the general results is as follows. The result is a homological version of the recent rigidity result by \textit{C. Guillarmou} and \textit{T. Lefeuvre} [Ann. Math. (2) 190, No. 1, 321--344 (2019; Zbl 1506.53054)]. Let \(\mathfrak{g}_\ast\) be a smooth, negatively curved Riemannian metric on a closed manifold \(M\). For any \(N > 0\) large enough, there exists \(\epsilon > 0\) such that for any smooth metric \(\mathfrak{g}\) on \(M\) satisfying \(\| \mathfrak{g} - \mathfrak{g}_\ast \|_{C^N} < \epsilon\), if \(\ell_{\mathfrak{g}_\ast} [x] \leq \ell_{\mathfrak{g}} [x]\) for every conjugacy class \([x]\) represented by an element in a fixed homology class of \(\pi_1(M)\), then \(\text{Vol}(M, \mathfrak{g}_\ast) \leq \text{Vol}(M, \mathfrak{g})\). This result shows that Guillarmou and Lefeuvre's result holds when we only look at closed geodesics lying in a prescribed homology class.

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Marked length spectrum rigidity from rigidity on subsets

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