Abstract

This workshop will study this question for systems of geometric origin. One example of this is a particle bouncing inside a region -- think of a ball bouncing around a billiard table, or a light beam bouncing around a room whose walls are mirrors. If the walls are flat then the behavior is fairly predictable, but if they are curved then one often observes random-looking behavior in the long run. Or imagine walking in a straight line along a surface; if the surface is flat then changing the starting point a little will lead to a predictable change in the trajectory. However, if the surface is curved like a saddle then different trajectories will spread out and your location after walking for a long time will eventually seem to be random. The task of giving precise descriptions of systems such as these requires a more complete development of the theory of thermodynamic formalism for systems of geometric origin, which is precisely the goal of this workshop.