SRB measures for partially hyperbolic systems whose central direction is mostly contracting

We consider partially hyperbolic diffeomorphisms preserving a splitting of the tangent bundle into a strong-unstable subbundleE ^uu (uniformly expanding) and a subbundleE ^c, dominated byE ^uu. We prove that if the central directionE ^c is mostly contracting for the diffeomorphism (negative Lyapunov exponents), then the ergodic Gibbsu-states are the Sinai-Ruelle-Bowen measures, there are finitely many of them, and their basins cover a full measure subset. If the strong-unstable leaves are dense, there is a unique Sinai-Ruelle-Bowen measure. We describe some applications of these results, and we also introduce a construction of robustly transitive diffeomorphisms in dimension larger than three, having no uniformly hyperbolic (neither contracting nor expanding) invariant subbundles. Work partially supported by CNRS and CNPq/PRONEX-Dynamical Systems, and carried out at Laboratoire de Topologie, Dijon, and IMPA, Rio de Janeiro.