Central limit theorem and geodesic tracking on hyperbolic spaces and Teichmüller spaces

Abstract

We study random walks on the isometry group of a Gromov hyperbolic space or Teichmüller 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.