Geometric entropy of geodesic currents on free groups.

Abstract: A emph{geodesic current} on a free group

F

is an

F

-invariant measure on the set

p a r t i a l^{2} F

of pairs of distinct points of

p a r t i a l F

. The space of geodesic currents on

F

is a natural companion of Culler-Vogtmann's Outer space

c v (F)

and studying them together yields new information about both spaces as well as about the group

O u t (F)

. The main aim of this paper is to introduce and study the notion of {it geometric entropy}

h_{T} (m u)

of a geodesic current

m u

with respect to a point

T

of

c v (F)

, which can be viewed as a length function on

F

. The geometric entropy is defined as the slowest rate of exponential decay of

m u

-measures of bi-infinite cylinders in

F

, as the

T

-length of the word defining such a cylinder goes to infinity. We obtain an explicit formula for

h_{T^{'}} (m u_{T})

, where

T, T^{'}

are arbitrary points in

c v (F)

and where

m u_{T}

denotes a Patterson-Sullivan current corresponding to

T

. It involves the volume entropy

h (T)

and the extremal distortion of distances in

T

with respect to distances in

T^{'}

. It follows that, given

T

in the projectivized outer space

C V (F)

,

h_{T^{'}} (m u_{T})

as function of

T^{'} i n C V (F)

achieves a strict global maximum at

T^{'} = T

. We also show that for any

T i n c v (F)

and any geodesic current

m u

on

F

,

h_{T} (m u) l e h (T)

, where the equality is realized when

m u = m u_{T}

. For points

T i n c v (F)

with simplicial metric (where all edges have length one), we relate the geometric entropy of a current and the measure-theoretic entropy.

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