Gradient Flow of the Sinai–Ruelle–Bowen Entropy

Abstract Motivated by an extension to Gallavotti–Cohen Chaotic Hypothesis, we study local and global existence of a gradient flow of the Sinai–Ruelle–Bowen entropy functional in the space of transitive Anosov maps. For the space of expanding maps on the unit circle, we equip it with a Hilbert manifold structure using a Sobolev norm in the tangent space of the manifold. Under the additional measure-preserving assumption and a slightly modified metric, we show that the gradient flow exists globally and every trajectory of the flow converges to a unique limiting map where the SRB entropy attains the maximal value. In a simple case, we obtain an explicit formula for the flow’s ordinary differential equation representation. This gradient flow has close connection to a nonlinear partial differential equation, a gradient-dependent diffusion equation.