Equidistribution of polynomially bounded o-minimal curves in homogeneous spaces

TL;DR

This paper generalizes Ratner's theorem to non-contracting polynomially bounded o-minimal curves in homogeneous spaces, establishing their equidistribution and describing the limiting behavior of their trajectories.

Contribution

It extends equidistribution results to a broader class of definable curves in homogeneous spaces, introducing new techniques for analyzing polynomially bounded o-minimal trajectories.

Findings

Trajectories of non-contracting o-minimal curves equidistribute in homogeneous spaces.

Existence of a unique minimal subgroup associated with such curves.

Development of a new method to prove goodness of certain maps in representation spaces.

Abstract

We extend Ratner's theorem on equidistribution of individual orbits of unipotent flows on finite volume homogeneous spaces of Lie groups to trajectories of non-contracting curves definable in polynomially bounded o-minimal structures. To be precise, let $\varphi:[0,\infty)\to \text{SL}(n,\mathbb R)$ be a continuous map whose coordinate functions are definable in a polynomially bounded o-minimal structure; for example, rational functions. Suppose that $\varphi$ is non-contracting; that is, for any linearly independent vectors $v_1,\ldots,v_k$ in $\mathbb R^n$, $\varphi(t).(v_1\wedge\cdots\wedge v_k)\not\to0$ as $t\to\infty$. Then, there exists a unique smallest subgroup $H_\varphi$ of $\text{SL}(n,\mathbb R)$ generated by unipotent one-parameter subgroups such that $\varphi(t)H_\varphi\to g_0H_\varphi$ in $\text{SL}(n,\mathbb R)/H_\varphi$ as $t\to\infty$ for some $g_0\in \text{SL}(n,\mathbb R)$. Let $G$ be a closed subgroup of $\text{SL}(n,\mathbb R)$ and $\Gamma$ be a lattice in $G$. Suppose that $\varphi([0,\infty))\subset G$. Then $H_\varphi\subset G$, and for any $x\in G/\Gamma$, the trajectory $\{\varphi(t)x:t\in [0,T]\}$ gets equidistributed with respect to the measure $g_0\mu_{Lx}$ as $T\to\infty$, where $L$ is a closed subgroup of $G$ such that $\overline{Hx}=Lx$ and $Lx$ admits a unique $L$-invariant probability measure, denoted by $\mu_{Lx}$. A crucial new ingredient in this work is proving that for any finite-dimensional representation $V$ of $\text{SL}(n,\mathbb R)$, there exist $T_0>0$, $C>0$, and $\alpha>0$ such that for any $v\in G$, the map $t\mapsto \|\varphi(t)v\|$ is $(C,\alpha)$-good on $[T_0,\infty)$.