Average exit time for volume-preserving maps

For a volume-preserving map, we show that the exit time averaged over the entry set of a region is given by the ratio of the measure of the accessible subset of the region to that of the entry set. This result is primarily of interest to show two things: First, it gives a simple bound on the algebraic decay exponent of the survival probability. Second, it gives a tool for computing the measure of the accessible set. We use this to compute the measure of the bounded orbits for the Henon quadratic map. (c) 1997 American Institute of Physics.