A Central Limit Theorem for the Winding Number of Low-Lying Closed Geodesics

We show that the winding of low-lying closed geodesics on the modular surface has a Gaussian limiting distribution when normalized by any standard notion of length, in contrast to the Cauchy distribution arising when allowing arbitrarily deep excursions into the cusp. In addition, we prove a Berry-Esseen bound and a local limit theorem.