Physical measures are an important tool in the study of hyperbolic
dynamics, governing, for example, the statistical properties of the
orbit of almost every point with respect to volume (in the dissipative
setting). The well-studied uniformly hyperbolic (Anosov)
diffeomorphisms and flows always have ergodic physical measures,
whereas the more general class of partially hyperbolic systems lose
this property. For these systems, we are instead guaranteed the
existence of at least one, and possibly infinite, ergodic u-Gibbs
measure(s). In the case of a unique u-Gibbs measure, that measure is
automatically physical.
Thus, a natural question in the partially hyperbolic setting is the
following: under what conditions is there a unique u-Gibbs measure?
More generally, which u-Gibbs measures are physical? This question was
partially answered in dimension three by Eskin, Potrie, and Zhang.
Here we partially extend this result to arbitrary dimensions, and
discuss the dichotomy that arises: roughly, a u-Gibbs measure is
physical if and only if it is not jointly integrable of some order.
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