Polynomial mixing for time-changes of unipotent flows

Abstract

Let $G$ be a connected semisimple Lie group with finite centre, and let $M= \Gamma \backslash G$ be a compact homogeneous manifold. Under a spectral gap assumption, we show that smooth time-changes of any unipotent flow on $M$ have polynomial decay of correlations. Our result applies also in the case where $M$ is a finite volume, non-compact quotient under some additional assumptions on the generator of the time-change. This generalizes a result by Forni and Ulcigrai (JMD, 2012) for smooth time-changes of horocycle flows on compact surfaces.