Time Change Rigidity of Unipotent Flows
Vortrag von Prof. Dr. Daren Wei
Datum: 20.11.24 Zeit: 13.30 - 14.30 Raum: Y27H28
Two non-isomorphic ergodic measure preserving flows can become isomorphic if one of the systems undergoes an appropriate time change. In this case we will say that these flows are Kakutani equivalent to each other. We say that an ergodic flow is loosely Kronecker if it is Kakutani equivalent to the straight line flow on (say) a two torus in an irrational direction (the exact direction is immaterial as these are all equivalent to each other). Landmark work of Ratner from the late 70s (that paved the way to her even more famous results on orbit closures and equidistribution of unipotent flows) establishes that 1) the horocycle flow on any finite area surface of constant negative curvature is loosely Kronecker. 2) the product of two such flows is not loosely Kronecker. It remained an open problem whether e.g. products of two horocycle flows are Kakutani equivalent to each other. We show unipotent flows are very rigid under time changes, and indeed unless the flows are loosely Kronecker, two unipotent flows are Kakutani equivalent if and only if they are isomorphic as measure preserving flows. This is a joint work with Elon Lindenstrauss