Quantitative ergodic theorems for actions of groups of polynomial growth

Abstract: We strengthen the maximal ergodic theorem for actions of groups of polynomial growth to a form involving jump quantity, which is the sharpest result among the family of variational or maximal ergodic theorems. As a consequence, we deduce in this setting the quantitative ergodic theorem, in particular, the upcrossing inequalities with exponential decay. The ideas or techniques involve probability theory, non-doubling Calder\'on-Zygmund theory, almost orthogonality argument and some delicate geometric argument involving the balls and the cubes on the group equipped with a not necessarily doubling measure.