Non-stationary non-uniform hyperbolicity: SRB measures for dissipative maps (Q506490)

The authors study a different construction of SRB measures, which is more directly geometric and has its roots in the work of Pesin and Sinai on partially hyperbolic systems. The authors show the existence of SRB measures for diffeomorphisms where a positive volume set of initial conditions satisfy an ``effective hyperbolicity'' condition that guarantees certain recurrence conditions on the iterates of Lebesgue measure [the first and the third author, Ergodic Theory Dyn. Syst. 36, No. 1, 23--63 (2016; Zbl 1364.37066)]. The main results of the present paper give general criteria for existence of an SRB measure that can be applied without a dominated splitting. The authors also give a specific example of systems on the boundary of Axiom A (with neutral fixed points) that do not admit a dominated splitting but have SRB measures. Let \(f : U \to M\) be a \(C^{1+\alpha}\) Axiom A diffeomorphism onto its image with \(f(U) \subset U\), where \(\alpha \in (0, 1)\). Suppose that \(f\) has one-dimensional unstable bundle and let \(p\) be a fixed point for \(f\). For example, one can choose \(f\) to be the Smale-Williams solenoid or its sufficiently small perturbation. For simplicity, suppose that there exists a neighborhood \(V\) of \(p\) with local coordinates in which \(f\) is the time-1 map of the flow generated by \(\dot{x} = Ax\) for some \(A \in {\mathrm{GL}}(d, \mathbb{R})\). Assume that the local coordinates identify the splitting \(E^u \oplus E^s\) with \(\mathbb{R} \oplus \mathbb{R}^{d-1}\), so that \(A = A_u \oplus A_s\), where \(A_u = \gamma \text{Id}_u\) and \(A_s = - \beta \text{Id}_s\) for some \(\gamma\), \(\beta >0\). They use local coordinates on \(V\) and identify \(p\) with \(0\). Fix \(0< r_0< r_1\) such that \(B_{r_1}(0) \subset V\), and let \(\psi : V \to [0, 1]\) be a \(C^{1+\alpha}\) function such that \(\psi(x) = \| x \|^\alpha\) for \(\| x \| \leq r_0\); \(\psi(x)\) is an increasing function of \(\| x \|\) for \(r_0 \leq \| x \| \leq r_1\); \(\psi(x) = 1\) for \(\| x \| \geq r_1\). Let \(X : V \to \mathbb{R}^d\) be the vector field given by \(X(x) = \psi(x)Ax\), and let \(g : U \to M\) be given by the time-1 map of this vector field on \(V\) and by \(f\) on \(U \setminus V\). Then, by one of the main results of this paper, it follows that \(g\) has an SRB measure.