Chaos and integrability in SL(2,R)-geometry

Abstract

The integrability of the geodesic flow on the three-folds $\mathcal M^3$ admitting $SL(2,\mathbb R)$-geometry in Thurston's sense is investigated. The main examples are the quotients $\mathcal M^3_Γ=Γ\backslash PSL(2,\mathbb R)$, where $Γ\subset PSL(2,\mathbb R)$ is a cofinite Fuchsian group. We show that the corresponding phase space $T^*M_Γ^3$ contains two open regions with integrable and chaotic behaviour with zero and positive topological entropy respectively. As a concrete example we consider the case of modular 3-fold with the modular group $Γ=PSL({2,\mathbb Z})$, when $\mathcal M^3_Γ$ is known to be homeomorphic to the complement of a trefoil knot $\mathcal K$ in 3-sphere. Ghys proved a remarkable fact that the lifts of the periodic geodesics to the modular surface to $\mathcal M^3_Γ$ produce the same isotopy class of knots, which appeared in the chaotic version of the celebrated Lorenz system and were extensively studied by Birman and Williams. We show that in the integrable limit of the geodesic system on $\mathcal M^3_Γ$ they are replaced by the simple class of cable knots of trefoil.