Fluctuations of time averages around closed geodesics in non-positive curvature

Daniel J. Thompson, Tianyu Wang

Published 2020-08-19Version 1

We consider the geodesic flow for a rank one non-positive curvature closed manifold. We prove an asymptotic version of the Central Limit Theorem for families of measures constructed from regular closed geodesics converging to the Bowen-Margulis-Knieper measure of maximal entropy. The technique is based on generalizing ideas of Denker, Senti and Zhang, who proved this type of asymptotic Lindeberg Central Limit Theorem on periodic orbits for expansive maps with the specification property. We extend these techniques from the uniform to the non-uniform setting, and from discrete-time to continuous-time. We consider H\"older observables subject only to the Lindeberg condition and a weak positive variance condition. Furthermore, if we assume a natural strengthened positive variance condition, the Lindeberg condition is always satisfied. We also generalize our results to dynamical arrays of H\"older observables, and to weighted periodic orbit measures which converge to a unique equilibrium state.