Positive Lyapunov exponent for random perturbations of predominantly expanding multimodal circle maps

Abstract: We study the effects of IID random perturbations of amplitude $\epsilon > 0$ on the asymptotic dynamics of one-parameter families ${f_a : S^1 \to S^1, a \in [0,1]}$ of smooth multimodal maps which "predominantly expanding", i.e., $|f'a| \gg 1$ away from small neighborhoods of the critical set ${ f'_a = 0 }$. We obtain, for any $\epsilon > 0$, a \emph{checkable, finite-time} criterion on the parameter $a$ for random perturbations of the map $f_a$ to exhibit (i) a unique stationary measure, and (ii) a positive Lyapunov exponent comparable to $\int{S^1} \log |f_a'| \, dx$. This stands in contrast with the situation for the deterministic dynamics of $f_a$, the chaotic regimes of which are determined by typically uncheckable, infinite-time conditions. Moreover, our finite-time criterion depends on only $k \sim \log (\epsilon^{-1})$ iterates of the deterministic dynamics of $f_a$, which grows quite slowly as $\epsilon \to 0$.