We study deterministic and stochastic perturbations of incompressible flows on a two-dimensional torus. Even in the case of purely deterministic perturbations, the long-time behavior of such flows can be stochastic. The stochasticity is caused by instabilities near the saddle points as well as by the ergodic component of the locally Hamiltonian system on the torus.

We study the dynamics of semigroups of Möbius transformations on the Riemann sphere, especially their Julia sets and attractors. This theory relates to the dynamics of rational functions, rational semigroups, and Möbius groups and we compare and contrast these theories. We particularly examine Caruso’s family of Möbius semigroups, based on a random dynamics variant of the Fibonacci sequence.

Let G be an amenable group and let V be a finite-dimensional vector space over an arbitrary field 𝕂. We prove that if X⊂VG is a strongly irreducible linear subshift of finite type and τ:X→X is a linear cellular automaton, then τ is surjective if and only if it is pre-injective. We also prove that if G is countable and X⊂VG is a strongly irreducible linear subshift, then every injective linear cellular automaton τ:X→X is surjective.

In this paper we investigate the ideal structure of the C*-algebra of a locally injective surjection introduced by the second-named author. Our main result is that a simple quotient of the C*-algebra of a locally injective surjection on a compact metric space of finite covering dimension is either a full matrix algebra, a crossed product of a minimal homeomorphism of a compact metric space of finite covering dimension, or it is purely infinite and hence covered by the classification result of Kirchberg and Phillips. It follows in particular that if the C*-algebra of a locally injective surjection on a compact metric space of finite covering dimension is simple, then it is automatically purely infinite, unless the map in question is a homeomorphism. A corollary of this result is that if the C*-algebra of a one-sided subshift is simple, then it is also purely infinite.

A natural generalization of interval exchange maps are linear involutions, first introduced by Danthony and Nogueira [Measured foliations on non-orientable surfaces. Ann. Sci. Éc. Norm. Supér. (4) 26(6) (1993), 645–664]. Recurrent train tracks with a single switch provide a subclass of linear involutions. We call such linear involutions non-classical interval exchanges. They are related to measured foliations on orientable flat surfaces. Non-classical interval exchanges can be studied as a dynamical system by considering Rauzy induction in this context. This gives a refinement process on the parameter space similar to Kerckhoff’s simplicial systems. We show that the refinement process gives an expansion that has a key dynamical property called uniform distortion. We use uniform distortion to prove normality of the expansion. Consequently, we prove an analog of Keane’s conjecture: almost every non-classical interval exchange is uniquely ergodic. Uniform distortion has been independently shown in [A. Avila and M. Resende. Exponential mixing for the Teichmüller flow in the space of quadratic differentials, http://arxiv.org/abs/0908.1102].

We construct a countable family of open intervals contained in (0,1] whose endpoints are quadratic surds and such that their union is a full measure set. We then show that these intervals are precisely the monotonicity intervals of the entropy of α-continued fractions, thus proving a conjecture of Nakada and Natsui.

We study a notion of residual finiteness for continuous actions of discrete groups on compact Hausdorff spaces and how it relates to the existence of norm microstates for the reduced crossed product. Our main result asserts that an action of a free group on a zero-dimensional compact metrizable space is residually finite if and only if its reduced crossed product admits norm microstates, i.e., is an MF algebra.

If a countable amenable group G contains an infinite subgroup Γ, one may define, from a measurable action of Γ, the so-called co-induced measurable action of G. These actions were defined and studied by Dooley, Golodets, Rudolph and Sinelsh’chikov. In this paper, starting from a topological action of Γ, we define the co-induced topological action of G. We establish a number of properties of this construction, notably, that the G-action has the topological entropy of the Γ-action and has uniformly positive entropy (completely positive entropy, respectively) if and only if the Γ-action has uniformly positive entropy (completely positive entropy, respectively). We also study the Pinsker algebra of the co-induced action.

The critical dimension is an invariant that measures the growth rate of the sums of Radon–Nikodym derivatives for non-singular dynamical systems. We show that for Bratteli–Vershik systems with multiple edges, the critical dimension can be computed by a formula analogous to the Shannon–McMillan–Breiman theorem. This extends earlier results of Dooley and Mortiss on computing the critical dimensions for product and Markov odometers on infinite product spaces.

For a jointly measurable probability-preserving action τ:ℝD↷(X,μ) and a tuple of polynomial maps pi:ℝ→ℝD, i=1,2,…,k, the multiple ergodic averages converge in L2(μ) as T→∞ for any f1,f2,…,fk∈L∞(μ). This confirms the continuous-time analog of the conjectured norm convergence of discrete polynomial multiple ergodic averages, which in its original formulation remains open in most cases. A proof of convergence can be given based on the idea of passing up to a sated extension of (X,μ,τ) in order to find a simple partially characteristic factor, similarly to the recent development of this idea for the study of related discrete-time averages, together with a new inductive scheme on tuples of polynomials. The new induction scheme becomes available upon changing the time variable in the above integral by some fractional power, and provides an alternative to Bergelson’s polynomial ergodic theorem induction, which has been the mainstay of positive results in this area in the past.

We introduce methods that allow us to derive continuous-time versions of various discrete-time ergodic theorems. We then illustrate these methods by giving simple proofs and refinements of some known results as well as establishing new results of interest.

We study the relation between escape rates and pressure in general dynamical systems with holes, where pressure is defined to be the difference between entropy and the sum of positive Lyapunov exponents. Central to the discussion is the formulation of a class of invariant measures supported on the survivor set over which we take the supremum to measure the pressure. Upper bounds for escape rates are proved for general diffeomorphisms of manifolds, possibly with singularities, for arbitrary holes and natural initial distributions, including Lebesgue and Sinai–Reulle–Bowen (SRB) measures. Lower bounds do not hold in such a generality, but for systems admitting Markov tower extensions with spectral gaps, we prove the equality of the escape rate with the absolute value of the pressure and the existence of an invariant measure realizing the escape rate, i.e. we prove a full variational principle. As an application of our results, we prove a variational principle for the billiard map associated with a planar Lorentz gas of finite horizon with holes.

We examine the relations between topological entropy, invertibility, and prediction in topological dynamics. We show that topological determinism in the sense of Kamińsky, Siemaszko, and Szymański imposes no restriction on invariant measures except zero entropy. Also, we develop a new method for relating topological determinism and zero entropy, and apply it to obtain a multidimensional analog of this theory. We examine prediction in symbolic dynamics and show that while the condition that each past admits a unique future only occurs in finite systems, the condition that each past has a bounded number of futures imposes no restriction on invariant measures except zero entropy. Finally, we give a negative answer to a question of Eli Glasner by constructing a zero-entropy system with a globally supported ergodic measure in which every point has multiple preimages.

On each compact connected orientable surface of genus greater than one we construct a class of flows without self-similarities.

We consider isometric actions of lattices in semisimple algebraic groups on (possibly non-compact) homogeneous spaces with (possibly infinite) invariant Radon measure. We assume that the action has a dense orbit, and demonstrate two novel and non-classical dynamical phenomena that arise in this context. The first is the existence of a mean ergodic theorem even when the invariant measure is infinite; this implies the existence of an associated limiting distribution, which can be different from the underlying invariant measure. The second is uniform quantitative equidistribution of all orbits in the space, which follows from a quantitative mean ergodic theorem for such actions. In turn, these results imply quantitative ratio ergodic theorems for isometric actions of lattices. This sheds some unexpected light on certain equidistribution problems posed by Arnol’d [Arnol’d’s Problems. Springer, Berlin, 2004] and also on the ratio equidistribution conjecture for dense subgroups of isometries formulated by Kazhdan [Uniform distribution on a plane. Tr. Mosk. Mat. Obs. 14 (1965), 299–305]. We briefly mention the general problem regarding ergodic theorems for actions of lattices on homogeneous spaces and its solution given by Gorodnik and Nevo [Duality principle and ergodic theorems, in preparation], and present a number of examples to demonstrate our results. Finally, we also prove results on quantitative equidistribution for absolutely continuous averages in transitive actions.

In the first part of this paper, we consider several natural problems about locally homogeneous rigid geometric structures. In particular, we formulate a notion of topological completeness which is adapted to the study of global rigidity of chaotic dynamical systems. In the second part of the paper, we prove the following result: let φ be a C∞ expanding map of a closed manifold. If φ preserves a topologically complete C∞ rigid geometric structure, then φ is C∞ conjugate to an expanding infra-nilendomorphism.

We consider the functional in a periodic setting. We discuss whether the minimizers or the stable solutions satisfy some symmetry or monotonicity properties, with special emphasis on the autonomous case when F is x-independent. In particular, we give an answer to a question posed by Victor Bangert when F is autonomous in dimension n≤3 and in any dimension for non-zero rotation vectors.

This article addresses some open questions about the relations between the topological weak mixing property and the transitivity of the map f×f2×⋯×fm, where f:X→X is a topological dynamical system on a compact metric space. The theorem stating that a weakly mixing and strongly transitive system is Δ-transitive is extended to a non-invertible case with a simple proof. Two examples are constructed, answering the questions posed by Moothathu [Diagonal points having dense orbit. Colloq. Math. 120(1) (2010), 127–138]. The first one is a multi-transitive non-weakly mixing system, and the second one is a weakly mixing non-multi-transitive system. The examples are special spacing shifts. The latter shows that the assumption of minimality in the multiple recurrence theorem cannot be replaced by weak mixing.

On the space of unimodular lattices, we construct a sequence of invariant probability measures under a singular diagonal element with high entropy, and show that the limit measure is zero.

In previous work, the author introduced a measure-conjugacy invariant for sofic group actions called sofic entropy. Here, it is proven that the sofic entropy of an amenable group action equals its classical entropy. The proof uses a new measure-conjugacy invariant called upper-sofic entropy and a theorem of Rudolph and Weiss for the entropy of orbit-equivalent actions relative to the orbit change σ-algebra.