Lyapunov exponents for continuous transformations and dimension theory (Q2568583)

The authors introduce Lyapunov exponents for arbitrary transformations of \({\mathbb R}^m\), i.e., transformations that are not necessarily differentiable. The definition of the new exponents imitates the derivative. More precisely, one considers a fixed metric \(d\) on \(\mathbb R^m\). For each \(x\in {\mathbb R}^m\) and each \(k\in\{1,\ldots, m\}\), the Lyapunov exponents of a transformation \(f:{\mathbb R}^m\to {\mathbb R}^m\) at the point \(x\) are the numbers \[ \Lambda_k^+=\inf_{L\in L_{x,k}}\lim_{\delta\to 0}\limsup_{n\to\infty}{1\over n}\log\sup_{y\in C_x(\delta,n)\cap L}{{d(f^n x, f^n y)}\over{d(x,y)}}, \] where \(L_{x,k}\) denotes the family of sets of the form \(x+F\), for some \(k\)--dimensional subspace \(F\subset \mathbb R^m\), \[ B_x(\delta,n)=\{y\in \mathbb R^m\,| \, d(f^j x, f^j y)<\delta, j\in\{0,1,\ldots, n\}\}, \] and \[ C_x(\delta,n)=\{y\in B_x(\delta,n)\setminus \{x\}\,| \, [f^j x, f^j y]\subset f^j B_x(\delta, n), j\in\{0,1,\ldots, n\}\}, \] with \([v,w]\subset \mathbb R^m\) denoting the line segment between the points \(v\) and \(w\). It is shown that the new exponents agree almost everywhere with the classical ones for \(C^{1+\alpha}\) transformations of \(\mathbb R^m\) exhibiting an invariant repeller on which the transformation has \(\alpha\)-bunched derivative. Another class of transformations for which the new exponents coincide with the classical ones is the class of \(C^{1+\alpha}\) diffeomorphisms of \(\mathbb R^m\) having a compact hyperbolic set. The authors also discuss the relation of the new Lyapunov exponents with the dimension theory of dynamical systems.