Marked length spectrum rigidity conjecture

From papers

Let XX be a closed manifold, and let h1h_1 and h2h_2 be Riemannian metrics on XX with negative sectional curvature. For each such metric, let MLSh\mathrm{MLS}_h assign to every conjugacy class of π1(X)\pi_1(X) the length of its geodesic representative. Marked length spectrum rigidity conjecture. If

MLSh1=MLSh2,\mathrm{MLS}_{h_1}=\mathrm{MLS}_{h_2},

then h1h_1 and h2h_2 are isometric, that is, there exists a diffeomorphism ϕ:XX\phi:X\to X such that ϕh2=h1\phi^*h_2=h_1; equivalently, the two metrics have the same marked length spectrum if and only if they are isometric. This is a central rigidity problem in the geometry of negatively curved manifolds and is identified as an open problem of Burns and Katok.

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Sources & referencesView supporting material

Primary source

Sébastien Alvarez, Ben Lowe and Graham Smith, “Rigidity of the hyperbolic marked energy spectrum and entropy for k-surfaces”, arXiv:2412.14389 (2025).

Additional references

4 papers in this index state this conjecture (2022–2024). The statement above is taken from the most recent of them; the others are arXiv:2409.20545, arXiv:2211.01865, arXiv:2208.12244.

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