Equilibrium states for non-uniformly expanding maps: decay of correlations and strong stability (Q2447524)

In this article, the authors study the strong statistical properties of some equilibrium states for a large class of non-uniformly expanding local homeomorphisms that may not admit a Markov partition. (In the past the absence of a Markov partition constituted a serious obstruction to extending the thermodynamical formalism beyond the scope of uniform hyperbolicity). Even in the absence of Markov partition the authors establish that the Ruelle-Perron-Frobenius transfer operator has a spectral gap in the Banach spaces of both Hölder continuous and smooth observables. They also provided an alternative proof for the existence and uniqueness of the equilibrium states. They deduce exponential decay of correlations and prove a central limit theorem. Finally, they prove that in this non-uniformly expanding setting the topological pressure varies continuously with respect to the dynamics and the potential.