Polynomial growth of volume of balls for zero-entropy geodesic systems

Abstract: The aim of this paper is to state and prove polynomial analogues of the classical Manning inequality relating the topological entropy of a geodesic flow with the growth rate of the volume of balls in the universal covering. To this aim we use two numerical conjugacy invariants, the {\em strong polynomial entropy $h_{pol}$} and the {\em weak polynomial entropy $h_{pol}^*$}. Both are infinite when the topological entropy is positive and they satisfy $h_{pol}^*\leq h_{pol}$. We first prove that the growth rate of the volume of balls is bounded above by means of the strong polynomial entropy and we show that for the flat torus this inequality becomes an equality. We then study the explicit example of the torus of revolution for which we can give an exact asymptotic equivalent of the growth rate of volume of balls, which we relate to the weak polynomial entropy.