Regularity of characteristic exponents and linear response for transfer operator cocycles

Abstract: We consider cocycles obtained by composing sequences of transfer operators with positive weights, associated with uniformly expanding maps (possibly having countably many branches) and depending upon parameters. Assuming $C^k$ regularity with respect to coordinates and parameters, we show that when the sequence is picked within a certain uniform family the top characteristic exponent and generator of top Oseledets space of the cocycle are $C^{k-1}$ in parameters. As applications, we obtain a linear response formula for the equivariant measure associated with random products of uniformly expanding maps, and we study the regularity of the Hausdorff dimension of a repeller associated with random compositions of one-dimensional cookie-cutters.