In the shadow of mixing properties, the central limit theorem and
similar chaotic behavior a dynamical system may experience, dwells the
system of falling balls. The description of the latter system comes at
hand: Three balls moving along a vertical line, colliding elastically
with each other and the lowest ball collides with a rigid floor placed
at height zero. It is not known whether this system possesses the
aforementioned chaotic properties because it is not even known yet to
be ergodic.
The system of falling balls belongs to the family of non-uniformly
hyperbolic systems with singularities. In order to establish
ergodicity, it is necessary to check five conditions of the celebrated
Local Ergodic Theorem. In this talk I will present a proof for one of
them, namely, the Chernov-Sinai Ansatz. It is also planned to give the
audience an overview of what is known about the remaining conditions.
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