Probability density functions of some skew tent maps

We consider a family of chaotic skew tent maps. The skew tent map is a two-parameter, piecewise-linear, weakly-unimodal, map of the interval F-a,F-b. We show that F-a,F-b is Markov for a dense set of parameters in the chaotic region, and we exactly find the probability density function (pdf), for any of these maps. It is well known (Boyarsky A, Gora P. Laws of chaos: invariant measures and dynamical systems in one dimension. Boston: Birkhauser, 1997), that when a sequence of transformations has a uniform limit F, and the corresponding sequence of invariant pdfs has a weak limit, then that invariant pdf must be F invariant. However, we show in the case of a family of skew lent maps that not only does a suitable sequence of convergent sequence exist, but they can be constructed entirely within the family of skew tent maps. Furthermore, such a sequence can be found amongst the set of Markov transformations, for which pdfs are easily and exactly calculated. We then apply these results to exactly integrate Lyapunov exponents. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.