doi10.1017S0143385704000793 Printed in the United Kingdom Dynamics on the space of harmonic.pdf

Ergod. Th. Dynam. Sys. (2005), 25, 503–516 c? 2005 Cambridge University Press doi:10.1017/S0143385704000793 Printed in the United Kingdom Dynamics on the space of harmonic functions and the foliated Liouville problem R. FERES? and A. ZEGHIB? ? Department of Mathematics, 1146 Washington University, St. Louis, MO 63130, USA (e-mail: feres@math.wustl.edu) ? UMPA, E?cole Normale Supe?rieure de Lyon, 69364 Lyon CEDEX 07, France (Received 11 October 2002 and accepted in revised form 5 June 2003) Abstract. We study here the action of subgroups of PSL(2,R) on the space of harmonic functions on the unit disc bounded by a common constant, as well as the relationship this action has with the foliated Liouville problem. Given a foliation of a compact manifold by Riemannian leaves and a leafwise harmonic continuous function on the manifold, is the function leafwise constant? We give a number of positive results and also show a general class of examples for which the Liouville property does not hold. The connection between the Liouville property and the dynamics on the space of harmonic functions as well as general properties of this dynamical system are explored. It is shown among other properties that the Z-action generated by hyperbolic or parabolic elements of PSL(2,R) is chaotic. 1. Introduction Let Har(D) denote the space of complex-valued harmonic functions on the unit disc D = {z ∈ C : |z| 1} bounded by a common constant, which will be taken without loss of generality to be 1. Endowed with the topology of uniform convergence on compact subsets of D, Har(D) is a compact metrizable space. The group G = PSL(2,R) of hyperbolic isometries of D acts on Har(D) by composition: (g, f ) → f ? g?1, where f ∈ Har(D) and g ∈ G. A central concern of the present paper is the dynamics of the action on Har(D) of G and its subgroups, in particular, of lattices in G. We are led to study the dynamics of lattices in G on Har(D) by what will be called here the foliated Liouville problem. Th