Measure rigidity for solvable group actions in the space of lattices

Discrete subgroups of Lie groups (22E40) Spaces of measures, convergence of measures (28A33) Homogeneous flows (37A17) Relations between ergodic theory and number theory (37A44) Dynamics induced by group actions other than (mathbb{Z}) and (mathbb{R}), and (mathbb{C}) (37C85)

Abstract: We study invariant probability measures on the homogeneous space

m a t h r m {S L}_{n} (m a t h b b R) / m a t h r m {S L}_{n} (m a t h b b Z)

for the action of subgroups of

m a t h r m {S L}_{n} (m a t h b b R)

of the form

S F

where

F

is generated by one parameter unipotent groups and

S

is a one parameter

m a t h b b R

-diagonalizable group normalizing

F

. Under the assumption that

S

contains an element with only one eigenvalue less than one (counted with multiplicity) and others bigger than one we prove that all the

S F

invariant and ergodic probability measures on

m a t h r m {S L}_{n} (m a t h b b R) / m a t h r m {S L}_{n} (m a t h b b Z)

are homogeneous.

Review text

\textit{M. Ratner}'s [Ann. Math. (2) 134, No. 3, 545--607 (1991; Zbl 0763.28012)] famous measure rigidity result concerns the actions of subgroups \(H\) generated by unipotents on homogeneous spaces \(G/\Gamma\). Here, \(H \subset G\) acts by left multiplication, and \(\Gamma\) is a lattice in \(G\). A paraphrase of the statement is that any ergodic invariant probability measure is homogeneous, that is, it is Haar measure on \(L/L \cap g\Gamma g^{-1}\), where \(H \subset L\), and \(L \cap g\Gamma g^{-1}\) is a lattice in \(L\). An important special case, due to connections to the geometry of numbers and Diophantine approximation is \(G = \mathrm{SL}(n,\mathbb R)\) and \(\Gamma = \mathrm{SL}(n, \mathbb Z)\). In Diophantine applications, it is often of interest to try to understand the invariant measures and orbit closures for the group generated by the group generated by unipotents together with the one-parameter diagonal groups which normalize groups generated by unipotents. The elegant main result of the paper is as follows. Let \(F\) be a subgroup of \(G = \mathrm{SL}(n,\mathbb{R})\), \(n\geq 2\), generated by one-parameter unipotent subgroups. Let \(S=\{a_t:t\in\mathbb{R}\}\) be a simple one-parameter \(\mathbb R\)-diagonalizable subgroup of \(G\) normalizing \(F\). Then any \(SF\)-invariant ergodic probability measure on \(\mathrm{SL}(n, \mathbb{R})/\mathrm{SL}(n,\mathbb{Z})\) is homogeneous. This simplicity assumption is necessary, as \textit{R. Shi} and \textit{B. Weiss} [Isr. J. Math. 219, No. 1, 479--505 (2017; Zbl 1430.11093)] pointed out, even for \(n = 4\). Without the simplicity assumption there are homogeneous and even non-homogeneous \(SF\)-invariant and ergodic probability measures.

Recommendations

Cites work

Cited in

(4)

This page was built for publication: Measure rigidity for solvable group actions in the space of lattices

Report a bug (only for logged in users!)Click here to report a bug for this page (MaRDI item Q2003531)