On the essential spectrum of the transfer operator for expanding Markov maps (Q1180233)

Transfer operators provide an important tool in the study of dynamical systems. The spectrum of these operators can be decomposed into a discrete part and an essential part. In this paper one studies in detail the essential spectrum for regular expanding Markov maps of the interval. To this end an infinite set of eigenfunctions is constructed explicitly. This set allows to prove that the essential spectrum in \(\mathbb{C}^ k\) is a disk whose radius is related to the free energy of the Lyapunov exponent.