An element g of an abstract group G is a distortion element if there exists a finite family S in G such that g belongs to the subgroup generated by S and the wordlength of gn (w.r.t. S) grows sublinearly in n. In this talk, we will be interested in the distortion elements of the group of Cr orientation-preserving diffeomorphisms of the closed interval, for different values of r. In particular, we will present some natural obstructions to distortion (such that the presence of hyperbolic fixed points in C1 regularity and the positivity of the so-called asymptotic distortion in C2 regularity (and higher)), and we will wonder whether they are the only ones.[-]

Studying the (closure of the) (semi-)conjugacy class of a given group action on a 1-manifold is interesting from many points of view. Depending on the manifold and/or the differentiability involved, one is faced with problems concerning small denominators, growth of groups / orbits, distortion elements, bounded cohomology, group orderability, etc. In this minicourse we will explore several general results on this topic such as the $C^1$ smoothing via (semi-)conjugacies of small group actions and obstructions in class $C^2$ and higher. We will also explore some of the ideas involved in the proof of the connectedness of the space of $\mathbb{Z}^d$ actions by diffeomorphisms of $C^{1+ac}$ regularity (obtained in collaboration with H. Eynard-Bontemps).[-]

Studying the (closure of the) (semi-)conjugacy class of a given group action on a 1-manifold is interesting from many points of view. Depending on the manifold and/or the differentiability involved, one is faced with problems concerning small denominators, growth of groups / orbits, distortion elements, bounded cohomology, group orderability, etc. In this minicourse we will explore several general results on this topic such as the $C^1$ smoothing via (semi-)conjugacies of small group actions and obstructions in class $C^2$ and higher. We will also explore some of the ideas involved in the proof of the connectedness of the space of $\mathbb{Z}^d$ actions by diffeomorphisms of $C^{1+ac}$ regularity (obtained in collaboration with H. Eynard-Bontemps).[-]

Studying the (closure of the) (semi-)conjugacy class of a given group action on a 1-manifold is interesting from many points of view. Depending on the manifold and/or the differentiability involved, one is faced with problems concerning small denominators, growth of groups / orbits, distortion elements, bounded cohomology, group orderability, etc. In this minicourse we will explore several general results on this topic such as the $C^1$ smoothing via (semi-)conjugacies of small group actions and obstructions in class $C^2$ and higher. We will also explore some of the ideas involved in the proof of the connectedness of the space of $\mathbb{Z}^d$ actions by diffeomorphisms of $C^{1+ac}$ regularity (obtained in collaboration with H. Eynard-Bontemps).[-]

Left-handed flows are 3-dimensional flows which have a particular topological property, namely that every pair of periodic orbits is negatively linked. This property (introduced by Ghys in 2007) implies the existence of as many Bikrhoff sections as possible, and therefore allows to reduce the flow to a suspension in many different ways. It then becomes natural to look for examples. A construction of Birkhoff (1917) suggests that geodesic flows are good candidates. In this conference we determine on which hyperbolic orbifolds is the geodesic flow left-handed: the answer is that yes if the surface is a sphere with three cone points, and no otherwise.
dynamical system - geodesic flow - knot - periodic orbit - global section - linking number - fibered knot[-]

The study of the path-connectedness of the space of $C^{r}$ actions of $\mathbb{Z}^{2}$ on the interval [0,1] plays an important role in the classification of codimension 1 foliations on 3 manifolds. One way to deform actions is by conjugation. If an action can be brought arbitrarily close to the trivial one by conjugation, it is said to be quasi-reducible. In this talk, we will present and compare obstructions to quasi-reducibility in different regularity classes, and draw conclusions concerning the initial connectedness problem.[-]