Invariant families of cones and Lyapunov exponents

Abstract

We show that in several cases preservation of cones leads to non-vanishing of (some) Lyapunov exponents. It gives simple and effective criteria for nonvanishing of the exponents, which is demonstrated on the example of the billiards studied by Bunimovich. It is also shown that geodesic flows on manifolds of non-positive sectional curvature can be treated from this point of view. © 1985, Cambridge University Press. All rights reserved.