Ergodicity of frame flows on even-dimensional manifolds

Vortrag von Dr. Mihajlo Cekić

Datum: 22.11.21  Zeit: 15.00 - 16.00  Raum: Y27H28

Flows of frames over negatively curved Riemannian manifolds (M, g) are one of the oldest examples of partially hyperbolic dynamics. It is well known that frame flows of hyperbolic manifolds are ergodic, while Kahler manifolds never have ergodic frame flows; Brin conjectured in the 70's that all manifolds with sectional curvature between -1 and -0.25 (i.e. curvature is 0.25-pinched) have ergodic frame flows. In this talk I will explain recent progress on this conjecture: we show that in dimensions 4k+2 the frame flow is ergodic if (M, g) is ~0.27 pinched, and in dimensions 4k if it is ~0.55 pinched. Our new method uses techniques in hyperbolic dynamics (transitivity group, Parry's representation), topology of structure groups of spheres, and Fourier analysis in the vertical fibre of the unit sphere bundle (based on Pestov identity). This is joint work with Lefeuvre, Moroianu, and Semmelmann.