Spectral properties of horocycle flows for surfaces of constant negative curvature

We consider flows, called $W^{\rm u}$ flows, whose orbits are the unstable manifolds of a codimension one Anosov flow. Under some regularity assumptions, we give a short proof of the strong mixing property of $W^{\rm u}$ flows and we show that $W^{\rm u}$ flows have purely absolutely continuous spectrum in the orthocomplement of the constant functions. As an application, we obtain that time changes of the classical horocycle flows for compact surfaces of constant negative curvature have purely absolutely continuous spectrum in the orthocomplement of the constant functions for time changes in a regularity class slightly less than $C^2$. This generalises recent results on time changes of horocycle flows.