What Are Lyapunov Exponents, and Why Are They Interesting?

At the 2014 International Congress of Mathematicians in Seoul, South Korea, Franco-Brazilian mathematician Artur Avila was awarded the Fields Medal for “his profound contributions to dynamical systems theory, which have changed the face of the field, using the powerful idea of renormalization as a unifying principle.” Although it is not explicitly mentioned in this citation, there is a second unifying concept in Avila’s work that is closely tied with renormalization: Lyapunov (or characteristic) exponents. Lyapunov exponents play a key role in three areas of Avila’s research: smooth ergodic theory, billiards and translation surfaces, and the spectral theory of 1-dimensional Schrödinger operators. Here we take the opportunity to explore these areas and reveal some underlying themes connecting exponents, chaotic dynamics and renormalization. But first, what are Lyapunov exponents? Let’s begin by viewing them in one of their natural habitats: the iterated barycentric subdivision of a triangle. When the midpoint of each side of a triangle is connected to its opposite vertex by a line segment, the three resulting segments meet in a point in the interior of the triangle. The barycentric subdivision of a triangle is the collection of 6 smaller triangles determined by these segments and the edges of the original triangle: