Ratner's property and mixing for special flows over two-dimensional rotations

Abstract

We consider special flows over two-dimensional rotations by $(\alpha ,\beta )$ on $\T^2$ and under piecewise $C^2$ roof functions $f$ satisfying von Neumann's condition $\int_{\T^2}f_x(x,y)\,dx\,dy\neq 0\neq \int_{\T^2}f_y(x,y)\,dx\,dy.$ Such flows are shown to be always weakly mixing and never partially rigid. For an uncountable set of $(\alpha ,\beta )$ with both $\alpha$ and $\beta$ of unbounded partial quotients the strong mixing property is proved to hold. It is also proved that while specifying to a subclass of roof functions and to ergodic rotations for which $\alpha$ and $\beta$ are of bounded partial quotients the corresponding special flows enjoy so called weak Ratner's property. As a consequence, such flows turn out to be mildly mixing.