Approximate control of the marked length spectrum by short geodesics

The marked length-spectrum of a surface of nonpositive curvature

Surfaces with the same marked length spectrum

The subject of this paper is the relationships among the marked length spectrum, the length spectrum, the Laplace spectrum on functions, and the Laplace spectrum on forms on Riemannian nilmanifolds. In particular, we show that for a large class of three-step nilmanifolds, if a pair of nilmanifolds in this class has the same marked length spectrum, they necessarily share the same Laplace spectrum on functions. In contrast, we present the first example of a pair of isospectral Riemannian manifolds with the same marked length spectrum but not the same spectrum on one-forms. Outside of the standard spheres vs. the Zoll spheres, which are not even isospectral, this is the only example of a pair of Riemannian manifolds with the same marked length spectrum, but not the same spectrum on forms. This partially extends and partially contrasts the work of Eberlein, who showed that on two-step nilmanifolds, the same marked length spectrum implies the same Laplace spectrum both on functions and on forms.

We consider finite $2$-complexes $X$ that arise as quotients of Fuchsian buildings by subgroups of the combinatorial automorphism group, which we assume act freely and cocompactly. We show that locally CAT($-1$) metrics on $X$, which are piecewise hyperbolic and satisfy a natural non-singularity condition at vertices, are marked length spectrum rigid within certain classes of negatively curved, piecewise Riemannian metrics on $X$. As a key step in our proof, we show that the marked length spectrum function for such metrics determines the volume of $X$.

In all dimensions, we prove that the marked length spectrum of a Riemannian manifold $(M,g)$ with Anosov geodesic flow and non-positive curvature locally determines the metric in the sense that two close enough metrics with the same marked length spectrum are isometric. In addition, we provide a completely new stability estimate quantifying how the marked length spectrum control the distance between the metrics. In dimension $2$ we obtain similar results for general metrics with Anosov geodesic flows. We also solve locally a rigidity conjecture of Croke relating volume and marked length spectrum for the same category of metrics. Finally, by a compactness argument, we show that the set of negatively curved metrics (up to isometry) with the same marked length spectrum and with curvature in a bounded set of $C^\infty$ is finite.

We prove an ergodic rigidity theorem for discrete isometry groups of CAT(-1) spaces. We give explicit examples of divergence isometry groups with infinite covolume in the case of trees, piecewise hyperbolic 2-polyhedra, hyperbolic Bruhat-Tits buildings and rank one symmetric spaces. We prove that two negatively curved Riemannian metrics, with conical singularities of angles at least $ 2\pi $ , on a closed surface, with boundary map absolutely continuous with respect to the Patterson-Sullivan measures, are isometric. For that, we generalize J.-P. Otal's result to prove that a negatively curved Riemannian metric, with conical singularities of angles at least $ 2\pi $ , on a closed surface, is determined, up to isometry, by its marked length spectrum.

The purpose of this paper is to present the first continuous families of Riemannian manifolds that are isospectral on functions but not on 1-forms, and, simultaneously, the first continuous families of Riemannian manifolds with the same marked length spectrum but not the same 1-form spectrum. Examples of isospectral manifolds that are not isospectral on forms are sparse, as most examples of isospectral manifolds can be explained by Sunada’s method or its generalizations, hence are strongly isospectral. The examples here are three-step Riemannian nilmanifolds, arising from a general method for constructing isospectral Riemannian nilmanifolds previously presented by the author. Gordon and Wilson constructed the first examples of nontrivial isospectral deformations, continuous families of Riemannian nilmanifolds. Isospectral manifolds constructed using the Gordon-Wilson method, a generalized Sunada method, are strongly isospectral and must have the same marked length spectrum. Conversely, Ouyang and Pesce independently showed that all isospectral deformations of two-step nilmanifolds must arise from the Gordon-Wilson method, and Eberlein showed that all pairs of two-step nilmanifolds with the same marked length spectrum must come from the Gordon-Wilson method.

We consider billiards obtained by removing three strictly convex obstacles satisfying the non-eclipse condition on the plane. The restriction of the dynamics to the set of non-escaping orbits is conjugated to a subshift on three symbols that provides a natural labeling of all periodic orbits. We study the following inverse problem: does the Marked Length Spectrum (i.e., the set of lengths of periodic orbits together with their labeling), determine the geometry of the billiard table? We show that from the Marked Length Spectrum it is possible to recover the curvature at periodic points of period two, as well as the Lyapunov exponent of each periodic orbit.

This paper presents a study of the well‐known marked length spectrum rigidity problem in the coarse‐geometric setting. For any two (possibly non‐proper) group actions and with contracting property, we prove that if the two actions have the same marked length spectrum, then the orbit map must be a rough isometry. In the special case of cusp‐uniform actions, the rough isometry can be extended to the entire space. This generalises the existing results in hyperbolic groups and relatively hyperbolic groups. In addition, we prove a finer marked length spectrum rigidity from confined subgroups and further, geometrically dense subgroups. Our proof is based on the Extension Lemma and uses purely elementary metric geometry. This study produces new results and recovers existing ones for many more interesting groups through a unified and elementary approach.

Rigidity on symmetric spaces

In a compact geodesic metric space of topological dimension one, the minimal length of a loop in a free homotopy class is well-defined, and provides a function [Formula: see text] (the value [Formula: see text] being assigned to loops which are not freely homotopic to any rectifiable loops). This function is the marked length spectrum. We introduce a subset [Formula: see text], which is the union of all non-constant minimal loops of finite length. We show that if [Formula: see text] is a compact, non-contractible, geodesic space of topological dimension one, then [Formula: see text] deformation retracts to [Formula: see text]. Moreover, [Formula: see text] can be characterized as the minimal subset of [Formula: see text] to which [Formula: see text] deformation retracts. Let [Formula: see text] be a pair of compact, non-contractible, geodesic metric spaces of topological dimension one, and set [Formula: see text]. We prove that any isomorphism [Formula: see text] satisfying [Formula: see text], forces the existence of an isometry [Formula: see text] which induces the map [Formula: see text] on the level of fundamental groups. Thus, for compact, non-contractible, geodesic spaces of topological dimension one, the marked length spectrum completely determines the subset [Formula: see text] up to isometry.

The purpose of this paper is to compare the minimal marked length spectrum and the Laplace spectrum on functions and on forms for Riemannian two-step nilmanifolds. A Riemannian nilmanifold is a closed manifold of the form ( \G, g), where G is a simply connected nilpotent Lie group, is a cocompact (i.e., \G compact) discrete subgroup of G, and g arises from a left invariant metric on G. Examples of nilmanifolds include flat tori and Heisenberg manifolds. The Laplace spectrum of a closed Riemannian manifold (M, g) is the set of eigenvalues of the Laplace–Beltrami operator , counted with multiplicity. The Laplace–Beltrami operator may be extended to act on smooth p-forms by = dδ + δd, where δ is the metric adjoint of d. Two manifolds have the same marked length spectrum if there exists an isomorphism between the fundamental groups such that corresponding free homotopy classes of loops can be represented by smoothly closed geodesics of the same length. Two manifolds have the same minimal marked length spectrum (resp., maximal marked length spectrum) if there exists an isomorphism between the fundamental groups such that the smallest (resp., longest) closed loops in corresponding free homotopy classes have the same length. The main theorem of this paper is the following (see Theorem 2.5).

We refine the recent local rigidity result for the marked length spectrum obtained by the first and third author in [GL19] and give an alternative proof using the geodesic stretch between two Anosov flows and some uniform estimate on the variance appearing in the central limit theorem for Anosov geodesic flows. In turn, we also introduce a new pressure metric on the space of isometry classes, which reduces to the Weil–Petersson metric in the case of Teichmüller space and is related to the works [BCLS15, MM08].

We study the dynamics of magnetic flows on Heisenberg groups, investigating the extent to which properties of the underlying Riemannian geometry are reflected in the magnetic flow. Much of the analysis, including a calculation of the Mañé critical value, is carried out for $$(2n+1)$$ -dimensional Heisenberg groups endowed with any left invariant metric and any exact, left-invariant magnetic field. In the three-dimensional Heisenberg case, we obtain a complete analysis of left-invariant, exact magnetic flows. This is interesting in and of itself, because of the difficulty of determining geodesic information on manifolds in general. We use this analysis to establish two primary results. We first show that the vectors tangent to periodic magnetic geodesics are dense for sufficiently large energy levels and that the lower bound for these energy levels coincides with the Mañé critical value. We then show that the marked magnetic length spectrum of left-invariant magnetic systems on compact quotients of the Heisenberg group determines the Riemannian metric. Both results confirm that this class of magnetic flows carries significant information about the underlying geometry. Finally, we provide an example to show that extending this analysis of magnetic flows to the Heisenberg-type setting is considerably more difficult.

A strictly convex real projective orbifold is equipped with a natural Finsler metric called a Hilbert metric. In the case that the projective structure is hyperbolic, the Hilbert metric and the hyperbolic metric coincide. We prove that the marked Hilbert length spectrum determines the projective structure only up to projective duality. A corollary is the existence of non-isometric diffeomorphic strictly convex projective manifolds (and orbifolds) that are isospectral. This corollary follows from work of Goldman and Choi, and Benoist.