On the mixing properties of piecewise expanding maps under composition with permutations

Abstract

This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from American Institute of Mathematical Sciences via the DOI in this record.We consider the effect on the mixing properties of a piecewise smooth interval map f when its domain is divided into N equal subintervals and f is composed with a permutation of these. The case of the stretch-and-fold map f(x)=mxmod1 for integers m≥2 is examined in detail. We give a combinatorial description of those permutations σ for which σ∘f is still (topologically) mixing, and show that the proportion of such permutations tends to 1 as N→∞. We then investigate the mixing rate of σ∘f (as measured by the modulus of the second largest eigenvalue of the transfer operator). In contrast to the situation for continuous time diffusive systems, we show that composition with a permutation cannot improve the mixing rate of f, but typically makes it worse. Under some mild assumptions on m and N, we obtain a precise value for the worst mixing rate as σ ranges through all permutations; this can be made arbitrarily close to 1 as N→∞ (with m fixed). We illustrate the geometric distribution of the second largest eigenvalues in the complex plane for small m and N, and propose a conjecture concerning their location in general. Finally, we give examples of other interval maps f for which composition with permutations produces different behaviour than that obtained from the stretch-and-fold map