We study the set of ergodic measures for a Markov semigroup on a Polish state space. The principal assumption on this semigroup is the e-property, an equicontinuity condition. We introduce a weak concentrating condition around a compact set K and show that this condition has several implications on the set of ergodic measures, one of them being the existence of a Borel subset K0 of K with a bijective map from K0 to the ergodic measures, by sending a point in K0 to the weak limit of the Cesàro averages of the Dirac measure on this point. We also give sufficient conditions for the set of ergodic measures to be countable and finite. Finally, we give a quite general condition under which the Cesàro averages of any measure converge to an invariant measure.

We consider the multifractal analysis of Birkhoff averages of continuous potentials on a self-affine Sierpiński sponge. In particular, we give a variational principle for the packing dimension of the level sets. Furthermore, we prove that the packing spectrum is concave and continuous. We give a sufficient condition for the packing spectrum to be real analytic, but show that for general Hölder continuous potentials, this need not be the case. We also give a precise criterion for when the packing spectrum attains the full packing dimension of the repeller. Again, we present an example showing that this is not always the case.

We give a short (and fairly elementary) proof of the ‘residual Sinai theorem’ of which the Ornstein theorem is an immediate consequence. In principle, we follow the lines of [BKS] but our proof avoids any substantial quotations, in particular, invoking any characterizations of systems isomorphic to Bernoulli shifts. The core of the proof is five pages long and it relies only on standard facts in ergodic theory.

We prove the existence of two Alexandrov-embedded closed magnetic geodesics on any two-dimensional sphere with non-negative Gauß curvature.

We present a general setting to investigate 𝒰fin-cocycle superrigidity for Gaussian actions in terms of closable derivations on von Neumann algebras. In this setting we give new proofs to some 𝒰fin-cocycle superrigidity results of S. Popa and we produce new examples of this phenomenon. We also use a result of K. R. Parthasarathy and K. Schmidt to give a necessary cohomological condition on a group representation in order for the resulting Gaussian action to be 𝒰fin-cocycle superrigid.

In this paper, we first discuss some connections between template theory and the description of basic sets of Smale flows on 3-manifolds due to F. Béguin and C. Bonatti. The main tools we use are symbolic dynamics, template moves and some combinatorial surgeries. Secondly, we obtain some relationship between the surgeries and the number of S1×S2 factors of M for a non-singular Smale flow on a given closed orientable 3-manifold M. We also prove that any template T can model a basic set Λ of a non-singular Smale flow on nS1×S2 for some positive integer n.

We study the dimensions of stable sets and scrambled sets of a dynamical system with positive finite entropy. We show that there is a measure-theoretically ‘large’ set containing points whose sets of ‘hyperbolic points’ (i.e. points lying in the intersections of the closures of the stable and unstable sets) admit positive Bowen dimension entropies; under the continuum hypothesis, this set also contains a scrambled set with positive Bowen dimension entropies. For several kinds of specific invertible dynamical systems, the lower bounds of the Hausdorff dimension of these sets are estimated. In particular, for a diffeomorphism on a smooth Riemannian manifold with positive entropy, such a lower bound is given in terms of the metric entropy and Lyapunov exponent.

We study conditions that will ensure that a crossed product of a C*-algebra by a discrete exact group is purely infinite (simple or non-simple). We are particularly interested in the case of a discrete non-amenable exact group acting on a commutative C*-algebra, where our sufficient conditions can be phrased in terms of paradoxicality of subsets of the spectrum of the abelian C*-algebra. As an application of our results we show that every discrete countable non-amenable exact group admits a free amenable minimal action on the Cantor set such that the corresponding crossed product C*-algebra is a Kirchberg algebra in the UCT class.

Returning to a classical question in harmonic analysis, we strengthen an old result of Walter Rudin. We show that there exists a weakly almost periodic function on the group of integers ℤ which is not in the norm-closure of the algebra B(ℤ) of Fourier–Stieltjes transforms of measures on the dual group , and which is recurrent. We also show that there is a Polish monothetic group which is reflexively but not Hilbert representable.

We consider open billiard flows in ℝn and show that the standard symplectic form dα in ℝn satisfies a specific non-integrability condition over their non-wandering sets Λ. This allows one to use the main result in Stoyanov [Spectra of Ruelle transfer operators for Axiom A flows. Preprint, 2010, arXiv:0810.1126v4 [math.DS]] and obtain Dolgopyat-type estimates for the spectra of Ruelle transfer operators under simpler conditions. We also describe a class of open billiard flows in ℝn(n≥3) satisfying a certain pinching condition, which in turn implies that the (un)stable laminations over the non-wandering set are C1.

Let M3 be a Margulis spacetime whose associated complete hyperbolic surface Σ2 has a compact convex core. Generalizing the correspondence between closed geodesics on M3 and closed geodesics on Σ2, we establish an orbit equivalence between recurrent spacelike geodesics on M3 and recurrent geodesics on Σ2. In contrast, no timelike geodesic recurs in either forward or backward time.

We define ‘slow’ entropy invariants for ℤd actions on infinite measure spaces, which measure growth of itineraries at subexponential scales. We use this notion to construct infinite-measure preserving ℤ2 actions which cannot be realized as a group of diffeomorphisms of a compact manifold preserving a Borel measure, in contrast to the situation for ℤ actions, where every infinite-measure preserving action can be realized in this way.