Geometric potential of an expanding map Created 2026-10-14 Updated 2026-11-05
For a differentiable uniformly expanding interval map, the geometric potential of an expanding map is
The exponential of its length- orbit sum is the reciprocal derivative magnitude . This weight is geometric: an inverse branch contracts interval lengths by that factor.
The corresponding Perron-Frobenius operator transports a density by summing contributions from inverse branches:
For a finite smooth full-branch expanding map, standard bounded-distortion hypotheses give a positive regular fixed density , normalized by . The identity means that is an invariant measure. The cylinder averages of an invariant density explain how the geometric cylinder weights recover that density.
For the doubling map, there are two inverse branches and
The constant density is fixed, giving Lebesgue measure. Choosing an unequal-symbol potential instead produces a different Gibbs measure; an arbitrary Gibbs measure need not be absolutely continuous. Thus the potential, rather than the symbolic alphabet alone, determines whether the measure agrees with geometric length.
Perron-Frobenius operator 2026-11-05
The Perron-Frobenius operator transports a density under a map. For a piecewise smooth expanding interval map , relative to Lebesgue measure,
Each inverse branch contributes its incoming density times its length-contraction factor. A change of variables gives , proving that probability is transported correctly.
For the doubling map, . Thus the constant density is fixed. More generally, a normalized nonnegative fixed density determines an absolutely continuous invariant measure; a constant density need not be fixed for an arbitrary expanding map.