#### Volume 22, issue 4 (2018)

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Lower bounds for Lyapunov exponents of flat bundles on curves

### Alex Eskin, Maxim Kontsevich, Martin Möller and Anton Zorich

Geometry & Topology 22 (2018) 2299–2338
##### Abstract

Consider a flat bundle over a complex curve. We prove a conjecture of Fei Yu that the sum of the top $k$ Lyapunov exponents of the flat bundle is always greater than or equal to the degree of any rank-$k$ holomorphic subbundle. We generalize the original context from Teichmüller curves to any local system over a curve with nonexpanding cusp monodromies. As an application we obtain the large-genus limits of individual Lyapunov exponents in hyperelliptic strata of abelian differentials, which Fei Yu proved conditionally on his conjecture.

Understanding the case of equality with the degrees of subbundle coming from the Hodge filtration seems challenging, eg for Calabi–Yau-type families. We conjecture that equality of the sum of Lyapunov exponents and the degree is related to the monodromy group being a thin subgroup of its Zariski closure.

 To the memory of Jean-Christophe Yoccoz
##### Keywords
Lyapunov exponents, hypergeometric differential equations, Hodge bundles, parabolic structure
Primary: 37D25
##### Publication
Received: 12 October 2016
Accepted: 14 July 2017
Published: 5 April 2018
Proposed: Benson Farb
Seconded: Ian Agol, Anna Wienhard
##### Authors
 Alex Eskin Department of Mathematics University of Chicago Chicago, IL United States Maxim Kontsevich Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques le Bois Marie Bures-sur-Yvette France Martin Möller Institut für Mathematik Goethe-Universität Frankfurt Frankfurt am Main Germany Anton Zorich Center for Advanced Studies Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology Moscow Russia Institut de Mathématiques de Jussieu Université Paris 6 Paris France