An optimal transportation approach to the decay of correlations for non-uniformly expanding maps

We consider the transfer operators of non-uniformly expanding maps for potentials of various regularity, and show that a specific property of potentials ("flatness") implies a Ruelle-Perron-Frobenius Theorem and a decay of the transfer operator of the same speed than entailed by the constant potential. The method relies neither on Markov partitions nor on inducing, but on functional analysis and duality, through the simplest principles of optimal transportation. As an application, we notably show that for any map of the circle which is expanding outside an arbitrarily flat neutral point, the set of H{\"o}lder potentials exhibiting a spectral gap is dense in the uniform topology. The method applies in a variety of situation, including Pomeau-Manneville maps with regular enough potentials, or uniformly expanding maps of low regularity with their natural potential; we also recover in a united fashion variants of several previous results.Comment: v3: The published article (Ergodic Theory Dynam. Systems 40, 2020) contained a significant error in Lemma 2.14, used in the core Theorem 4.1. This is a consolidated version of the article, with the error corrected (and a few other minor points improved along the way). In order to fix the error, the assumption on coupling in 4.1 needs to be slightly modified (see also Definition 2.12) and Lemma 2.14 (now numbered 2.15) has been adjusted. Section 5.1 provides a criterion to ensure this new hypothesis in our cases of interest, so that all other results are unaffected. I apologize to readers of the previous version for this embarrassing mistake, and warmly thank Manuel Stadlbauer for pointing out this error to m

The linear request problem

We propose a simple approach to a problem introduced by Galatolo and Pollicott, consisting in perturbing a dynamical system in order for its absolutely continuous invariant measure to change in a prescribed way. Instead of using transfer operators, we observe that restricting to an infinitesimal conjugacy already yields a solution. This allows us to work in any dimension and dispense from any dynamical hypothesis. In particular, we don't need to assume hyperbolicity to obtain a solution, although expansion moreover ensures the existence of an infinite-dimensional space of solutions.Comment: v2: the approach has been further simplified, only basic differential calculus is in fact needed instead of basic PD

Effective high-temperature estimates for intermittent maps

Using quantitative perturbation theory for linear operators, we prove spectral gap for transfer operators of various families of intermittent maps with almost constant potentials ("high-temperature" regime). H\"older and bounded p-variation potentials are treated, in each case under a suitable assumption on the map, but the method should apply more generally. It is notably proved that for any Pommeau-Manneville map, any potential with Lispchitz constant less than 0.0014 has a transfer operator acting on Lip([0, 1]) with a spectral gap; and that for any 2-to-1 unimodal map, any potential with total variation less than 0.0069 has a transfer operator acting on BV([0, 1]) with a spectral gap. We also prove under quite general hypotheses that the classical definition of spectral gap coincides with the formally stronger one used in (Giulietti et al. 2015), allowing all results there to be applied under the high temperature bounds proved here: analyticity of pressure and equilibrium states, central limit theorem, etc.Comment: v2: minor corrections and clarifications. To appear in ETDS; Ergodic Theory and Dynamical Systems, Cambridge University Press (CUP), 201

The Cartan-Hadamard conjecture and The Little Prince

The generalized Cartan-Hadamard conjecture says that if $\Omega$ is a domain with fixed volume in a complete, simply connected Riemannian $n$-manifold $M$ with sectional curvature $K \le \kappa \le 0$, then the boundary of $\Omega$ has the least possible boundary volume when $\Omega$ is a round $n$-ball with constant curvature $K=\kappa$. The case $n=2$ and $\kappa=0$ is an old result of Weil. We give a unified proof of this conjecture in dimensions $n=2$ and $n=4$ when $\kappa=0$, and a special case of the conjecture for \kappa \textless{} 0 and a version for \kappa \textgreater{} 0. Our argument uses a new interpretation, based on optical transport, optimal transport, and linear programming, of Croke's proof for $n=4$ and $\kappa=0$. The generalization to $n=4$ and $\kappa \ne 0$ is a new result. As Croke implicitly did, we relax the curvature condition $K \le \kappa$ to a weaker candle condition $Candle(\kappa)$ or $LCD(\kappa)$.We also find counterexamples to a na\"ive version of the Cartan-Hadamard conjecture: For every \varepsilon \textgreater{} 0, there is a Riemannian 3-ball $\Omega$ with $(1-\varepsilon)$-pinched negative curvature, and with boundary volume bounded by a function of $\varepsilon$ and with arbitrarily large volume.We begin with a pointwise isoperimetric problem called "the problem of the Little Prince." Its proof becomes part of the more general method.Comment: v3: significant rewritting of some proofs, a mistake in the proof of the ball counter-example has been correcte

Mixed sectional-Ricci curvature obstructions on tori

We establish new obstruction results to the existence of Riemannian metrics on tori satisfying mixed bounds on both their sectional and Ricci curvatures. More precisely, from Lohkamp's theorem, every torus of dimension at least three admits Riemannian metrics with negative Ricci curvature. We show that the sectional curvature of these metrics cannot be bounded from above by an arbitrarily small positive constant. In particular, if the Ricci curvature of a Riemannian torus is negative, bounded away from zero, then there exist some planar directions in this torus where the sectional curvature is positive, bounded away from zero. All constants are explicit and depend only on the dimension of the torus

A geometric study of Wasserstein spaces: Hadamard spaces

Optimal transport enables one to construct a metric on the set of (sufficiently small at infinity) probability measures on any (not too wild) metric space X, called its Wasserstein space W(X). In this paper we investigate the geometry of W(X) when X is a Hadamard space, by which we mean that $X$ has globally non-positive sectional curvature and is locally compact. Although it is known that -except in the case of the line- W(X) is not non-positively curved, our results show that W(X) have large-scale properties reminiscent of that of X. In particular we define a geodesic boundary for W(X) that enables us to prove a non-embeddablity result: if X has the visibility property, then the Euclidean plane does not admit any isometric embedding in W(X).Comment: This second version contains only the first part of the preceeding one. The visibility properties of W(X) and the isometric rigidity have been split off to other articles after a referee's commen

Optimal transport and dynamics of expanding circle maps acting on measures

Using optimal transport we study some dynamical properties of expanding circle maps acting on measures by push-forward. Using the definition of the tangent space to the space of measures introduced by Gigli, their derivative at the unique absolutely continuous invariant measure is computed. In particular it is shown that 1 is an eigenvalue of infinite multiplicity, so that the invariant measure admits many deformations into nearly invariant ones. As a consequence, we obtain counter-examples to an infinitesimal version of Furstenberg's conjecture. We also prove that this action has positive metric mean dimension with respect to the Wasserstein metric.Comment: 35 pages; v4 includes a corrigendum (Lemma 4.2 statement and proofs are corrected without influence on the main results) and an addendum (application to an infinitesimal version of Furstenberg Conjecture, Theorem 1.7 and Corollary 1.8

Bad cycles and chaos in iterative Approval Voting

We consider synchronized iterative voting in the Approval Voting system. We give examples with a Condorcet winner where voters apply simple, sincere, consistent strategies but where cycles appear that can prevent the election of the Condorcet winner, or that can even lead to the election of a ''consensual loser'', rejected in all circumstances by a majority of voters. We conduct numerical experiments to determine how rare such cycles are. It turns out that when voters apply Laslier's Leader Rule they are quite uncommon, and we prove that they cannot happen when voters' preferences are modeled by a one-dimensional culture. However a slight variation of the Leader Rule accounting for possible draws in voter's preferences witnesses much more bad cycle, especially in a one-dimensional culture.Then we introduce a continuous-space model in which we show that these cycles are stable under perturbation. Last, we consider models of voters behavior featuring a competition between strategic behavior and reluctance to vote for candidates that are ranked low in their preferences. We show that in some cases, this leads to chaotic behavior, with fractal attractors and positive entropy.Comment: v2: added a numerical study of rarity of bad cycles and equilibriums, and a case of chaotic Continuous Polling Dynamics. Many other improvements throughout the tex

Optimal transportation and stationary measures for Iterated Function Systems

In this article we show how ideas, methods and results from optimal transportation can be used to study various aspects of the stationary measuresof Iterated Function Systems equipped with a probability distribution. We recover a classical existence and uniqueness result under a contraction-on-average assumption, prove generalized moment bounds from which tail estimates can be deduced, consider the convergence of the empirical measure of an associated Markov chain, and prove in many cases the Lipschitz continuity of the stationary measure when the system is perturbed, with as a consequence a "linear response formula" at almost every parameter of the perturbation.Comment: v3- small typos corrected. v2- many small modifications throughout, added a bibliographical section, improved the exponential moment estimate for the hyperbolic-parabolic example. Mathematical Proceedings, Cambridge University Press (CUP), In pres