We consider the system of $N$ ($\ge2$) elastically colliding hard balls of masses $m_1,...,m_N$ and radius $r$ in the flat unit torus $\Bbb T^ν$, $ν\ge2$. In the case $ν=2$ we prove (the full hyperbolicity and) the ergodicity of such systems for every selection $(m_1,...,m_N;r)$ of the external geometric parameters, without exceptional values. In higher dimensions, for hard ball systems in $\Bbb T^ν$ ($ν\ge3$), we prove that every such system (is fully hyperbolic and) has open ergodic components.
In the ergodic theory of semi-dispersing billiards the Local Ergodic Theorem, proved by Chernov and Sinai in 1987, plays a central role. So far, all existing proofs of this theorem had to use an annoying global hypothesis, namely the almost sure hyperbolicity of singular orbits. (This is the so called Chernov--Sinai Ansatz.) Here we introduce some new geometric ideas to overcome this difficulty and liberate the proof from the tyranny of the Ansatz. The presented proof is a substantial generalization of my previous joint result with N. Chernov (which is a $2D$ result) to arbitrary dimensions. A…
We consider the system of $N$ ($\ge2$) elastically colliding hard balls of masses $m_1,...,m_N$ and radius $r$ on the flat unit torus $\Bbb T^ν$, $ν\ge2$. We prove the so called Boltzmann-Sinai Ergodic Hypothesis, i. e. the full hyperbolicity and ergodicity of such systems for every selection $(m_1,...,m_N;r)$ of the external geometric parameters. The present proof does not use the formerly developed, rather involved algebraic techniques, instead it employs exclusively dynamical methods and tools from geometric analysis.
We consider the system of $N$ ($\ge2$) hard disks of masses $m_1,...,m_N$ and radius $r$ in the flat unit torus $\Bbb T^2$. We prove the ergodicity (actually, the B-mixing property) of such systems for almost every selection $(m_1,...,m_N;r)$ of the outer geometric parameters.
We consider the system of $N$ ($\ge2$) elastically colliding hard balls of masses $m_1,...,m_N$ and radius $r$ on the flat unit torus $\Bbb T^ν$, $ν\ge2$. We prove the so called Boltzmann-Sinai Ergodic Hypothesis, i. e. the full hyperbolicity and ergodicity of such systems for every selection $(m_1,...,m_N;r)$ of the external geometric parameters, provided that almost every singular orbit is geometrically hyperbolic (sufficient), i. e. the so called Chernov-Sinai Ansatz is true. The present proof does not use the formerly developed, rather involved algebraic techniques, instead it employs excl…
We consider the system of $N$ ($\ge2$) elastically colliding hard balls of masses $m_1,...,m_N$ and radius $r$ on the flat unit torus $\Bbb T^ν$, $ν\ge2$. We prove the so called Boltzmann-Sinai Ergodic Hypothesis, i. e. the full hyperbolicity and ergodicity of such systems for every selection $(m_1,...,m_N;r)$ of the external geometric parameters, without exceptional values. The present proof does not use at all the formerly developed, rather involved algebraic techniques, instead it employs exclusively dynamical methods and tools of geometric analysis.
In 1963 Ya. G. Sinai formulated a modern version of Boltzmann's ergodic hypothesis, what we now call the ``Boltzmann-Sinai Ergodic Hypothesis'': The billiard system of $N$ ($N\ge 2$) hard balls of unit mass moving on the flat torus $\mathbb{T}^ν=\mathbb{R}^ν/\mathbb{Z}^ν$ ($ν\ge 2$) is ergodic after we make the standard reductions by fixing the values of trivial invariant quantities. It took fifty years and the efforts of several people, including Sinai himself, until this conjecture was finally proved. In this short survey we provide a quick review of the closing part of this process, by show…
The system of falling balls is an autonomous Hamiltonian system with a smooth invariant measure and non-zero Lyapunov exponents almost everywhere. Since almost three decades, the question of ergodicity is still open. The subject of this work is to contribute to the solution of the ergodicity conjecture for three falling balls with a specific mass ratio. The latter is executed in the following three points: First, we prove the Chernov-Sinai ansatz. Second, we prove that there is an abundance of least expanding points and, third, we explain that the proper alignment condition can still be verifi…
We consider the billiard flow of elastically colliding hard balls on the flat $ν$-torus ($ν\ge 2$), and prove that no singularity manifold can even locally coincide with a manifold describing future non-hyperbolicity of the trajectories. As a corollary, we obtain the ergodicity (actually the Bernoulli mixing property) of all such systems, i.e. the verification of the Boltzmann-Sinai Ergodic Hypothesis.
The system of falling balls is an autonomous Hamiltonian system with a smooth invariant measure and non-zero Lyapunov exponents almost everywhere. For almost three decades new, the question of its ergodicity remains open. We contribute to the solution of the erogodicity conjecture for three falling balls with a specific mass ratio in the following two points: First, we prove the Chernov-Sinai ansatz. Second, we prove that there is an abundance of sufficiently expanding points. It is of special interest that for the aforementioned specific mass ratio, the configuration space can be unfolded to …
We discuss limit distributions for hitting-time functions of certain exceptional families of asymptotically rare events for ergodic probability preserving transformations. The abstract core is an inducing argument. The latter applies, for example, to shrinking intervals around periodic points (both uniformly expanding and neutral) of certain finite measure preserving interval maps. In particular, we give a complete answer to a question raised in [FFTV].
We construct examples of ergodic vertical flows in periodic configurations of Eaton lenses of fixed radius. We achieve this by studying a family of infinite translation surfaces that are $\mathbb{Z}^2$-covers of slit tori. We show that the Hausdorff dimension of lattices for which the vertical flow is ergodic is bigger than 3/2. Moreover, the lattices are explicitly constructed.
It is known that hyperbolic dynamical systems admit a unique invariant probability measure with maximal entropy. We prove an effective version of this statement and use it to estimate an upper bound for Hausdorff dimension of exceptional sets arising from dynamics.
We prove here that in the Theorem on Local Ergodicity for Semi-Dispersive Billiards (proved by N. I. Chernov and Ya. G. Sinai in 1987) the condition of the so called ``Ansatz'' can be dropped. That condition assumed that almost every singular phase point had a hyperbolic trajectory after the singularity. Having this condition dropped, the cited theorem becomes much stronger and easier to apply. At the end of the paper two immediate corollaries of this improvement are discussed: One of them is the (fully hyperbolic) Bernoulli mixing property of every hard disk system (D=2), the other one claims…
This work results from our attempts to solve Boltzmann-Sinai's hypothesis about the ergodicity of hard ball gases. A crucial element in the studies of the dynamics of hard balls is the analysis of special hypersurfaces in the phase space consisting of degenerate trajectories (which lack complete hyperbolicity). We prove that if a flow-invariant hypersurface $J$ in the phase space of a semi-dispersing billiard has a negative Lyapunov function, then the volume of the forward image of $J$ grows at least linearly in time. Our proof is independent of the solution of the Boltzmann-Sinai hypothesis, …
Mixing by cutting-and-shuffling can be mathematically described by the dynamics of piecewise isometries (PWIs), higher dimensional analogs of one-dimensional interval exchange transformations. In a two-dimensional domain under a PWI, the exceptional set, $\bar{E}$, which is created by the accumulation of cutting lines (the union of all iterates of cutting lines and all points that pass arbitrarily close to a cutting line), defines where mixing is possible but not guaranteed. There is structure within $\bar{E}$ that directly influences the mixing potential of the PWI. Here we provide new comput…
We prove that for semi-invertible and Hölder continuous linear cocycles $A$ acting on an arbitrary Banach space and defined over a base space that satisfies the Anosov Closing Property, all exceptional Lyapunov exponents of $A$ with respect to an ergodic invariant measure for base dynamics can be approximated with Lyapunov exponents of $A$ with respect to ergodic measures supported on periodic orbits. Our result is applicable to a wide class of infinite-dimensional dynamical systems.
We consider Bourgain's ergodic theorem regarding arithmetic averages in the cases where quantitative mixing is present in the dynamical system. Focusing on the case of the horocyclic flow, those estimates allows us to bound from above the Hausdorff dimension of the exceptional set, providing evidence towards conjectures by Margulis,Shah and Sarnak regarding equidistribution of arithmetic averages in homogeneous spaces. We also prove the existence of a uniform upper bound for the Hausdorff dimension of the exceptional set which is independent from the spectral gap.
We prove that almost every non-regular real quadratic map is Collet-Eckmann and has polynomial recurrence of the critical orbit (proving a conjecture by Sinai). It follows that typical quadratic maps have excellent ergodic properties, as exponential decay of correlations (Keller and Nowicki, Young) and stochastic stability in the strong sense (Baladi and Viana). This is an important step to get the same results for more general families of unimodal maps.
Let $f: M \to M$ be a $C^{1+α}$ map/diffeomorphism of a compact Riemannian manifold $M$ and $μ$ be an expanding/hyperbolic ergodic $f$-invariant Borel probability measure on $M$. Assume $f$ is average conformal expanding/hyperbolic on the support set $W$ of $μ$ and $W$ is locally maximal. For any subset $A\subset W$ with small entropy or dimension, we investigate the topological entropy and Hausdorff dimensions of the $A$-exceptional set and the limit $A$-exceptional set.
In this paper we prove the following result, useful and often needed in the study of the ergodic properties of hard ball systems: In any such system, for any phase point x with a non-singular forward trajectory and infinitely many connected collision graphs on that forward orbit, it is true that for any small number epsilon there is a stable tangent vector w of x and a large enough time t>>1 so that the vector w undergoes a contraction by a factor of less than epsilon in time t. Of course, the Multiplicative Ergodic Theorem of Oseledets provides a much stronger conclusion, but at the expense o…
For a surface diffeomorphism, a compact invariant locally maximal set $W$ and some subset $A\subset W$ we study the $A$-exceptional set, that is, the set of points whose orbits do not accumulate at $A$. We show that if the Hausdorff dimension of $A$ is smaller than the Hausdorff dimension $d$ of some ergodic hyperbolic measure, then the topological entropy of the exceptional set is at least the entropy of this measure and its Hausdorff dimension is at least $d$. Particular consequences occur when there is some a priori defined hyperbolic structure on $W$ and, for example, if there exists an SR…
We consider finitely generated groups of real-analytic circle diffeomorphisms. We show that if such a group admits an exceptional minimal set (i.e., a minimal invariant Cantor set), then its Lebesgue measure is zero; moreover, there are only finitely many orbits of connected components of its complement. For the case of minimal actions, we show that if the underlying group is (algebraically) free, then the action is ergodic with respect to the Lebesgue measure. This provides first answers to questions due to É. Ghys, G. Hector and D. Sullivan.
Consider an ergodic measure preserving dynamical system $(T,X,μ)$, and an observable $ϕ:X\to\mathbb{R}$. For the time series $X_n(x)=ϕ(T^{n}(x))$, we establish limit laws for the maximum process $M_n=\max_{k\leq n}X_k$ in the case where $ϕ$ is an observable maximized on a curve or submanifold, and $(T,X,μ)$ is a hyperbolic dynamical system. Such observables arise naturally in weather and climate applications. We consider the extreme value laws and extremal indices for these observables on Anosov diffeomorphisms, Sinai dispersing billiards and coupled expanding maps. In particular we obtain clu…
