Central limit theorem and geodesic tracking on hyperbolic spaces and Teichm\"uller spaces

TL;DR

This paper proves a central limit theorem for random walks on hyperbolic and Teichmüller spaces, linking it to the second moment condition, and explores geodesic tracking properties.

Contribution

It establishes the equivalence between finite second moment and the CLT for translation lengths, and extends understanding of geodesic tracking in these spaces.

Findings

CLT holds if and only if the second moment is finite.

Recovers and extends Benoist and Quint's CLT results.

Shows sublinear and logarithmic geodesic tracking under moment conditions.

Abstract

We study random walks on the isometry group of a Gromov hyperbolic space or Teichm\"uller space. We prove that the translation lengths of random isometries satisfy a central limit theorem if and only if the random walk has finite second moment. While doing this, we recover the central limit theorem of Benoist and Quint for the displacement of a reference point and establish its converse. Also discussed are the corresponding laws of the iterated logarithm. Finally, we prove sublinear geodesic tracking by random walks with finite $(1/2)$-th moment and logarithmic tracking by random walks with finite exponential moment.