The cohomological equation for Roth-type interval exchange maps

Abstract

We exhibit an explicit class of minimal interval exchange maps (i.e.m.’s) T T for which the cohomological equation \[ Ψ − Ψ ∘ T = Φ \Psi -\Psi \circ T=\Phi \] has a bounded solution Ψ \Psi provided that the datum Φ \Phi belongs to a finite codimension subspace of the space of functions having on each interval a derivative of bounded variation. The proof is purely dynamical and is based on a renormalization argument and on Gottshalk-Hedlund’s theorem. If the datum is more regular the loss of differentiability in solving the cohomological equation will be the same. The class of interval exchange maps is characterized in terms of a diophantine condition of Roth type imposed to an acceleration of the Rauzy-Veech-Zorich continued fraction expansion associated to T T . More precisely one must impose a growth rate condition for the matrices appearing in the continued fraction algorithm together with a spectral gap condition (which guarantees unique ergodicity) and a coherence condition. We also prove that the set of Roth-type interval exchange maps has full measure. In the appendices we construct concrete examples of Roth-type i.e.m.’s and we show how the growth rate condition alone does not imply unique ergodicity.