Uniqueness of the SRB measure for piecewise expanding weakly coupled map lattices in any dimension (Q852378)

A coupled map lattice (CML) is a superposition of a direct product of an infinite number of identical one-dimensional maps (single site maps) indexed by sites of the integer lattice \(\mathbb Z^d\) and an interaction (coupling) operator describing interactions among the sites. The exploration of ergodic properties of such systems has been started by \textit{L. A. Bunimovich} and \textit{Ya. G. Sinai} [Nonlinearity 1, 491--516 (1988; Zbl 0679.58028)] and continued by numerous publications. Usually in the literature the single site map was assumed to be a hyperbolic diffeomorphism of a smooth manifold while the coupling was modeled by a diffeomorphism of the infinite-dimensional state space. The latter turned out to be a very significant obstruction to the analysis of a more ``natural'' diffusive coupling corresponding to linear interactions between neighboring sites of the lattice. The present paper overcomes this difficulty and the authors prove the existence of a unique Sinai-Ruelle-Bowen measure for the CML composed of piecewise expanding single site maps and with the weak coupling, in particular, including the diffusive nearest neighbor interaction.