Exponential weak Bernoulli mixing for Collet-Eckmann maps (Q1327512)

The author proves exponential weak Bernoulli mixing for invariant measures associated to a class of piecewise monotonic maps of the interval. Such maps have already been studied by the author in collaboration with V. Baladi and T. Nowicki, and they include a class which the author calls ``Collet-Eckmann maps''. These are unimodal maps \(T : [0,1] \to [0,1]\) of class \(C^ 3\) with negative Schwarzian derivative and which satisfy \(\lim\inf_{n \to \infty}(| DT^ n(Tc)|)^{1\over n} > 1\), where \(c\) is the unique critical point of \(T\). (Collet and Eckmann had proved that such a map \(T\) has an invariant probability density.) The techniques used in the paper involve the spectral decomposition of the transfer operator and a construction due to F. Hofbauer on the Markov extension of a dynamical system.