Limits of Blaschke metrics

Abstract

We find a compactification of the $\mathrm{SL}(3,\mathbb{R})$-Hitchin component by studying the degeneration of the Blaschke metrics on the associated equivariant affine spheres. In the process, we establish the closure in the space of projectivized geodesic currents of the space of flat metrics induced by holomorphic cubic differentials on a Riemann surface.