Asymptotic Shapes for Ergodic Families of Metrics on Nilpotent Groups

Abstract

Let Gamma be a finitely generated nilpotent group. We consider three closely related problems: (i) the asymptotic cone for an equivariant ergodic family of inner metrics on Gamma, generalizing Pansu's theorem; (ii) the limit shapes for First Passage Percolation for general (not necessarily independent) ergodic processes on edges of a Cayley graph of Gamma; (iii) a sub-additive ergodic theorem over a general ergodic Gamma-action. The limiting objects are given in terms of a Carnot-Caratheodory metric on the graded nilpotent group associated to the Mal'cev completion of Gamma.