Exponential mixing for generic volume-preserving Anosov flows in dimension three (Q1651448)

Anosov diffeomorphisms and Anosov flows form a rich and interesting class of dynamical systems for which many problems are still open. The easiest method to construct an Anosov flow is to start from an Anosov diffeomorphism \(f: M \to M\) on a closed manifold \(M\) and consider the suspension of \(f\) on the closed manifold \[ M \times [0,1] / \left\{ (x,1) \sim (f(x),0)\, \forall x \in M \right\}. \] The Anosov alternative states that every volume-preserving Anosov flow is either \(C^1\)-conjugate to the suspension of an Anosov diffeomorphism or mixing. The set of flows satisfying the latter alternative forms a dense open subset and all known examples are exponentially mixing, leading to the famous Bowen-Ruelle conjecture: every mixing Anosov flow is exponentially mixing. The paper under review studies a problem related to the Bowen-Ruelle conjecture, namely whether exponential mixing is an open dense property for volume-preserving Anosov flows. The main result of the paper is a positive answer in dimension three, which is the smallest possible dimension for which Anosov flows exist. In order to achieve this result, the author introduces the non-integrability condition \((\mathrm{NI})_\rho\) for \(\rho > 0\) and shows that for sufficiently small \(\rho > 0\), the Anosov flows satisfying \((\mathrm{NI})_\rho\) are dense and exponentially mixing (see Theorem 2.15 and 2.16). The details of the proof are technical due to some non-smoothness which occurs. There is no immediate way of generalizing the techniques to Anosov flows which are not volume-preserving or defined in higher dimension.