Degenerations of k$k$‐positive surface group representations

We introduce k-positive representations, a large class of {1,& mldr;,k}--Anosov surface group representations into PGL(E) that share many features with Hitchin representations, and we study their degenerations: unless they are Hitchin, they can be deformed to non-discrete representations, but any limit is at least (k-3)-positive and irreducible limits are (k-1)-positive. A major ingredient, of independent interest, is a general limit theorem for positively ratioed representations.