On the abundance of non-zero central Lyapunov exponents, physical measures and stable ergodicity for partially hyperbolic dynamics

Abstract: We show that the time-1 map of an Anosov flow, whose strong-unstable foliation is $C^2$ smooth and minimal, is $C^2$ close to a diffeomorphism having positive central Lyapunov exponent Lebesgue almost everywhere and a unique physical measure with full basin, which is $C^r$ stably ergodic. Our method is perturbative and does not rely on preservation of a smooth measure.