Observable Lyapunov Exponents for Globally Coupled Maps in the Mean-Field Limit

Abstract

Large coupled systems may be chaotic at the microscopic level while exhibiting stable collective behaviour at the macroscopic level. Distinguishing between these two forms of instability has been a problem in the physics literature, and several approaches have been proposed. In this paper, we address this problem by introducing and studying \emph{observable Lyapunov exponents}, which measure the rate at which perturbations of initial conditions grow or decay when viewed through a chosen observable, rather than in the full phase space. For globally coupled maps, we consider finite-time observable Lyapunov exponents and define their mean-field counterpart by first taking the infinite-system limit and then the long-time limit. Our main result shows that, for a broad class of symmetric macroscopic observables, these exponents turn out to be determined by the linearisation of the self-consistent transfer operator, which is the nonlinear operator governing the evolution of the population distribution. We then apply this result to weakly coupled uniformly expanding maps and prove that their mean-field Lyapunov exponents are negative near a stationary mean-field state. Thus, although the microscopic dynamics is chaotic, perturbations decay at the macroscopic level. Our results provide a rigorous framework for distinguishing microscopic from macroscopic chaos in large interacting systems.