Limits of definable families and dilations in nilmanifolds

Ya'acov Peterzil, Sergei Starchenko

Published 2024-06-27Version 1

Let $G$ be a unipotent group and $\mathcal F=\{F_t:t\in (0,\infty)\}$ a family of subsets of $G$, with $\mathcal F$ definable in an o-minimal expansion of the real field. Given a lattice $\Gamma\subseteq G$, we study the possible Hausdorff limits of $\pi(\mathcal F)$ in $G/\Gamma$ as $t$ tends to $\infty$ (here $\pi:G\to G/\Gamma$ is the canonical projection). Towards a solution, we associate to $\mathcal F$ finitely many real algebraic subgroups $L\subseteq G$, and, uniformly in $\Gamma$, determine if the only Hausdorff limit at $\infty$ is $G/\Gamma$, depending on whether $L^\Gamma=G$ or not. The special case of polynomial dilations of a definable set is treated in details.