Uniqueness and exponential mixing for the measure of maximal entropy for piecewise hyperbolic maps (Q2229249)

The author studies a class of piecewise uniformly hyperbolic maps \(T:M \rightarrow M\) defined on a compact two-dimensional Riemannian manifold, possibly with boundary, under some additional conditions regarding the complexity of \(T\), uniform transversality and bounded derivatives. For a map \(T\) in this class, the notion of topological entropy \(h_{\ast}(T)\) of \(T\) is introduced, which counts the maximal open connected components of the phase space on which iterates of \(T\) are smooth. The author proves that \(h_{\ast}\) dominates the measure-theoretic entropies of the invariant measures of \(T\). Moreover, he shows that there exists a unique \(T\)-invariant probability measure \(\mu_{\ast}\) satisfying \(h_{\mu_{\ast}}(T) = h_{\ast}\), i.e., whose entropy coincides with the topological entropy. The construction of the measure of maximal entropy is based on a weighted transfer operator. Moreover, in order to determine upper and lower bounds on the spectral radius of the transfer operator, some growth lemmas are formulated and proved.