Algebricity of contact Anosov actions with

smooth invariant bundles

Uirá Norberto Matos de Almeida
ICMC - USP - São Carlos - uira.almeida@usp.br

Introduction Corolary
The classification of Anosov systems is an important and active area of research. After their in- Under the above conditions, suppose that the
troduction, by D. Anosov, it was conjectured that every Anosov system had an algebraic nature. action is faithful, then, the quasi-algebraic ac-
This conjecture has been proved false for Anosov flows, but remains an open problem for diffeo- tion (G, K , Γ, a) can be taken with G semisimple
morphisms and more general actions. Among the better known examples of Anosov flows, are the with rank greater then k. If, moreover, K is com-
contact ones, n 1992, Y. Benoist, P. Foulon and F. Labourie, showed that contact Anosov flows with pact, then the algebraic action (G, K , Γ, a) is in
smooth invarian bundles are algebraic. Inspired by this work, we proposed a definition of contact fact a weyl chamber action.
Anosov action, and show that contact Anosov flows with smooth invarian bundles have an algebraic
nature.
Idea of the Proof

Anosov actions Proposition One of the technical aspects of the previous

An action φ : Rk × M → M is said to be Anosov,
if there exists an element v ∈ Rk ,a splitting
TM = E + ⊕ T φ ⊕ E − , which is invariant by
the induced diffeomorphism φv : M → M, and
positive constants C, λ > 0 such that for every
n∈N
k(φv )n|E + k ≤ Ce−λn
−n −λn
k(φv )| − k ≤ Ce
E
(Quasi)-Algebraic
A (quasi)-algebraic action is given by a quadru-
ple (G, K , Γ, a) where
I G is a Lie group with Lie algebra g
I K ⊂ G is a compact (closed) Lie subgroup
with Lie algebra k
I a ⊂ g is a Lie subalgebra contained in the
normalizer Ng (K ) of K and such that a ∩ k =
{0}
I Γ ⊂ G is an uniform lattice (discrete sub-
group) acting freely on G/K (and such that
Γ\G/K is compact)
Under this conditions we have that a acts on
Γ\G/K by right translations.
If G is semisimple and a is a Cartan subspace,
then the algebraic action (G, K , Γ, a) is called a
Weyl chamber action.
Generalized Contact
Let M be a manifold of dimension 2n + k a gen-
eralized k-contact structure on M is given by a
splitting TM = I ⊕ E and 1-forms α1 , ... , αk
\ Step 1: For a point p ∈ M, consider Lie alge-
E= ker (αj )
I = ker (dλj ) ∀j
0 6= α1 ∧ · · · ∧ αk ∧ dαjn ∀j
Lemma
There exists unique vector fields X1 , ... , Xk ,
called Reeb vector fields, such that
I Xj is tangent to the distribution I
I αi (Xj ) = δij
Moreover those vector fields commute with
k [4] E. Ghys. Flots d’Anosov dont les feuil-
each other. The induced R action is called a
contact action.
Contact Anosov Actions
A contact action is called Anosov if there ex-
ist an Anosov element whose associated vec-
tor field is a Reeb vector field, and moreover,
E+ ⊕ E− = E
Let (G, K , Γ, a) be a Weyl chamber action,
where G has real rank k . Then there exists an
generalized k -contact structure such that the in-
duced contact action is in fact a Contact Anosov
Action, and coincides with the Weyl chamber
action.
Idea of Proof
Identify
Ωp (G/K , R)G = Hom(Λp (g/k), R)K
∗
Consider the roots λ1 , ... , λk ∈ a of g as left
invariant 1-forms on G/K , and consider a linear
combination
α = a1 λ1 + · · · + ak λk
Show that for a generic choice of constants
a1 , ... , ak , the 2-form dα is non degenerate on
the distribution generated by the weightspaces.
Theorem
Let φ : Rk × M → M be a contact Anosov ac-
tion with smooth invariant bundles, then is its
smoothly conjugated to an quasi-algebraic ac-
tion (G, K , Γ, a)
Sketch of the Proof
The idea is to endow M with a complete
(G, X ) structure which is compatible with the
underlining geometric structure.
bra g of (germs of) vector fields that integrates
to (local) diffeomorphisms which preserves the
Contact-Anosov structure. We also consider
the subalgebra k ⊂ g associated to diffeomor-
phisms which preserves the Contact-Anosov
structure and fix the point p
Step 2: Consider the simply connected group
G associated with the algebra g and the con-
nected subgroup k associated with k and show
that K is closed in G.
Step 3: Show that a neighborhood of p is lo-
cally modeled after G/K .
Step 4: Use Gromov’s open dense orbit theo-
rem to show that G/K is in fact a local model
for an open and dense subset ΩM
Step 5: Use some specially defined connec-
tions and complete geodesics to extend this
model to M
Step 6: Show that the resulting (G, X ) structure
is complete
proof is to show that G is in fact reductive, more
precisely, G = G0 × Rk . More over, G0 acts
transitively on the quotient G/K .
Let ρ : π1 (M) → G be the holonomy represen-
tation and ΓG it’s image. The main idea behind
the proof of the first assertion of the corolary, it
to show that the image of Γ under the projection
G → G0 is in fact discreet.
To conclude the second assertion, we first ob-
tained a decomposition
0
g = g0 ⊕ S ⊕ U
g0 = k0 ⊕ z1e ⊕ z2e ⊕ zh
Where
I k0 ⊕z1e is the subalgebra corresponding to the
subgroup K ∩ G0 .
I Z (0 ) = z1e ⊕ z2e ⊕ zh
I z1e ⊕ z2e is the subalgebra of elliptic elements
in Z (g0 ) and zh the hyperbolic elements.
I The action is given by z2e ⊕ zh
The idea of the proof is to show that z2e = 0. The
compacity of k0 ⊕ z1e will imply that zh is in fact a
Cartan subspace, and the proof follows.
Final Remarks
I The proposed geometric structure is a good
generalization of the usual contact structure.
I There are no known quasi algebraic Anosov
actions which are not algebraic.
I There are algebraic Anosov actions with non
semisimple ambient group, but both the re-
ductive case and semisimple case support
the generalized contact structure.
References
[1] U. N. M. de Almeida. Contact Anosov ac-
tions with smooth invariant bundles. PhD
Thesis, 2018.
[2] T. Barbot, C. Maquera Algebraic Anosov ac-
tions of Nilpotent Lie groups.Topology and
its Aplications, v. 31(1), 199–219, 2013.
[3] Y. Benoist, P. Foulon, F. Labourie. Flots
d’Anosov à distributions stable et instable
différentiables. J. Amer. Math. Soc., 5 33–
74, 1992.
letages stables sont différentiables. Ann.
Sci. Ecole Norm. Sup., (4) 20 (1987) 251–
270.
[5] A. Katok, R. Spatzier. Differential rigidity
of Anosov actions of higher rank abelian
groups and algebraic lattice actions. Proc.
Steklov Inst. Math., no. 1 (216), 287–314,
1997.