According to the work of Dennis Sullivan [A counterexample to the periodic orbit conjecture. Publ. Math. Inst. Hautes Études Sci. 46 (1976), 5–14], there exists a smooth flow on the five-sphere all of whose orbits are periodic, although there is no uniform bound on their periods. The question addressed in this article is whether these type of examples can occur in the partially hyperbolic context. That is, does there exist a partially hyperbolic diffeomorphism of a compact manifold such that all the leaves of its center foliation are compact but there is no uniform bound for their volumes? We develop tools to attack the previous question and show that it has a negative answer provided that all periodic leaves have finite holonomy.

In this paper, we study the maximal pattern complexity of infinite words up to Abelian equivalence. We compute a lower bound for the Abelian maximal pattern complexity of infinite words which are both recurrent and aperiodic by projection. We show that in the case of binary words, the bound is actually achieved and gives a characterization of recurrent aperiodic words.

We study the notions of weak rational ergodicity and rational weak mixing as defined by J. Aaronson [Rational ergodicity and a metric invariant for Markov shifts. Israel J. Math. 27(2) (1977), 93–123; Rational weak mixing in infinite measure spaces. Ergod. Th. & Dynam. Sys. 2012, to appear. http://arxiv.org/abs/1105.3541]. We prove that various families of infinite measure-preserving rank-one transformations possess or do not posses these properties, and consider their relation to other notions of mixing in infinite measure.

In the context of the Franks–Misiurewicz conjecture, we study homeomorphisms of the two-torus semiconjugate to an irrational rotation of the circle. As a special case, this conjecture asserts uniqueness of the rotation vector in this class of systems. We first characterize these maps by the existence of an invariant ‘foliation’ by essential annular continua (essential subcontinua of the torus whose complement is an open annulus) which are permuted with irrational combinatorics. This result places the considered class close to skew products over irrational rotations. Generalizing a well-known result of Herman on forced circle homeomorphisms, we provide a criterion, in terms of topological properties of the annular continua, for the uniqueness of the rotation vector. As a byproduct, we obtain a simple proof for the uniqueness of the rotation vector on decomposable invariant annular continua with empty interior. In addition, we collect a number of observations on the topology and rotation intervals of invariant annular continua with empty interior.

The Kuramoto model is a system of ordinary differential equations for describing synchronization phenomena defined as coupled phase oscillators. In this paper, a bifurcation structure of the infinite-dimensional Kuramoto model is investigated. A purpose here is to prove the bifurcation diagram of the model conjectured by Kuramoto in 1984; if the coupling strength $K$ between oscillators, which is a parameter of the system, is smaller than some threshold ${K}_{c} $, the de-synchronous state (trivial steady state) is asymptotically stable, while if $K$ exceeds ${K}_{c} $, a non-trivial stable solution, which corresponds to the synchronization, bifurcates from the de-synchronous state. One of the difficulties in proving the conjecture is that a certain non-selfadjoint linear operator, which defines a linear part of the Kuramoto model, has the continuous spectrum on the imaginary axis. Hence, the standard spectral theory is not applicable to prove a bifurcation as well as the asymptotic stability of the steady state. In this paper, the spectral theory on a space of generalized functions is developed with the aid of a rigged Hilbert space to avoid the continuous spectrum on the imaginary axis. Although the linear operator has an unbounded continuous spectrum on a Hilbert space, it is shown that it admits a spectral decomposition consisting of a countable number of eigenfunctions on a space of generalized functions. The semigroup generated by the linear operator will be estimated with the aid of the spectral theory on a rigged Hilbert space to prove the linear stability of the steady state of the system. The center manifold theory is also developed on a space of generalized functions. It is proved that there exists a finite-dimensional center manifold on a space of generalized functions, while a center manifold on a Hilbert space is of infinite dimension because of the continuous spectrum on the imaginary axis. These results are applied to the stability and bifurcation theory of the Kuramoto model to obtain a bifurcation diagram conjectured by Kuramoto.

We show that the sets of periods of multi-dimensional shifts of finite type are precisely the sets of integers of the complexity class NP. We also show that the functions counting their number are the functions of #P. We also give characterizations of some other notions of periodicity in terms of space complexity. We finish the paper by giving some characterizations for sofic and effective subshifts.

We prove that the geodesic flow on the unit tangent bundle to every hyperbolic 2-orbifold that is a sphere with three or four singular points admits explicit genus-one Birkhoff sections, and we determine the associated first return maps.

In this paper we consider the set of all extremal Volterra quadratic stochastic operators defined on a unit simplex $S^{4}$ and show that such operators can be reinterpreted in terms of zero-sum games. We show that an extremal Volterra operator is non-ergodic and an appropriate zero-sum game is a rock-paper-scissors game if either the Volterra operator is a uniform operator or for a non-uniform Volterra operator $V$ there exists a subset $I\subset \{1,2,3,4,5\}$ with $|I|\leq 2$ such that $\sum _{i\in I}(V^{n}\mathbf{x})_{i}\rightarrow 0,$ and the restriction of $V$ on an invariant face ${\rm\Gamma}_{I}=\{\mathbf{x}\in S^{m-1}:x_{i}=0,i\in I\}$ is a uniform Volterra operator.

We first prove that topological fiber entropy potential in a relatively symbolic extension (topological joining with a subshift) of a topological dynamical system (which is a non-negative, non-decreasing, upper semicontinuous and subadditive potential $\mathfrak{H}$) yields topological pressure equal to the topological entropy of the extended system. The terms occurring on the other side of the variational principle for pressure are equal to the extension entropies of the invariant measures. Thus the variational principle for pressure reduces to the usual variational principle (for entropy) applied to the extended system. Next we prove our main theorem saying that every non-negative, upper semicontinuous and subadditive potential $\mathfrak{F}$ (we drop the monotonicity assumption) is ‘nearly equal’ to the fiber entropy potential H in some relatively symbolic extension of the system, in the sense that all terms occurring in the variational principle for pressure are the same for both potentials. This gives a new interpretation of all such potentials $\mathfrak{F}$ as a kind of additional information function enhancing the natural information arising from the dynamical system, and provides a new proof of the variational principle for pressure. At the end of the paper we provide examples showing that both assumptions, continuity and additivity, under which so-called lower pressure (defined with the help of spanning sets) equals the pressure, are essential, already in the class of non-negative, upper semicontinuous, subadditive potentials.

In this paper we characterize measure-theoretical eigenvalues of Toeplitz Bratteli–Vershik minimal systems of finite topological rank which are not associated to a continuous eigenfunction. Several examples are provided to illustrate the different situations that can occur.

For an interval map whose critical point set may contain critical points with different one-sided critical orders and jump discontinuities, under a mild condition on critical orbits, we prove that it has an invariant probability measure which is absolutely continuous with respect to Lebesgue measure by using the methods of Bruin et al [Invent. Math. 172(3) (2008), 509–533], together with ideas from Nowicki and van Strien [Invent. Math. 105(1) (1991), 123–136]. We also show that it admits no wandering intervals.

We define directional recurrence for infinite measure preserving $\mathbb{Z}^{d}$ actions both intrinsically and via the unit suspension flow and prove that the two definitions are equivalent. We study the structure of the set of recurrent directions and show it is always a $G_{{\it\delta}}$ set. We construct an example of a recurrent action with no recurrent directions, answering a question posed in a 2007 paper of Daniel J. Rudolph. We also show by example that it is possible for a recurrent action to not be recurrent in an irrational direction even if all its sub-actions are recurrent.

Let $f: X~\dashrightarrow ~X$ be a dominant meromorphic self-map, where $X$ is a compact, connected complex manifold of dimension $n\gt 1$. Suppose that there is an embedded copy of ${ \mathbb{P} }^{1} $ that is invariant under $f$, with $f$ holomorphic and transversally superattracting with degree $a$ in some neighborhood. Suppose that $f$ restricted to this line is given by $z\mapsto {z}^{b} $, with resulting invariant circle $S$. We prove that if $a\geq b$, then the local stable manifold ${ \mathcal{W} }_{\mathrm{loc} }^{s} (S)$ is real analytic. In fact, we state and prove a suitable localized version that can be useful in wider contexts. We then show that the condition $a\geq b$ cannot be relaxed without adding additional hypotheses by presenting two examples with $a\lt b$ for which ${ \mathcal{W} }_{\mathrm{loc} }^{s} (S)$ is not real analytic in the neighborhood of any point.

In this article, we discuss subword complexity of colorings of regular trees. We characterize colorings of bounded subword complexity and study Sturmian colorings, which are colorings of minimal unbounded subword complexity. We classify Sturmian colorings using their type sets. We show that any Sturmian coloring is a lifting of a coloring on a quotient graph of the tree which is a geodesic or a ray, with loops possibly attached, thus a lifting of an ‘infinite word’. We further give a complete characterization of the quotient graph for eventually periodic colorings.

We consider toral extensions of hyperbolic dynamical systems. We prove that its quantitative recurrence (also with respect to given observables) and hitting time scale behavior depend on the arithmetical properties of the extension. By this we show that those systems have a polynomial decay of correlations with respect to $C^{r}$ observables, and give estimations for its exponent, which depend on $r$ and on the arithmetical properties of the system. We also show examples of systems of this kind having no shrinking target property, and having a trivial limit distribution of return time statistics.

This paper concerns the link between the dynamical behaviour of a dynamical system and the dynamical behaviour of its numerical simulations. Here, we model numerical truncation as a spatial discretization of the system. Some previous works on well-chosen examples (such as Gambaudo and Tresser [Some difficulties generated by small sinks in the numerical study of dynamical systems: two examples. Phys. Lett. A 94(9) (1983), 412–414]) show that the dynamical behaviours of dynamical systems and of their discretizations can be quite different. We are interested in generic homeomorphisms of compact manifolds. So our aim is to tackle the following question: can the dynamical properties of a generic homeomorphism be detected on the spatial discretizations of this homeomorphism? We will prove that the dynamics of a single discretization of a generic conservative homeomorphism does not depend on the homeomorphism itself, but rather on the grid used for the discretization. Therefore, dynamical properties of a given generic conservative homeomorphism cannot be detected using a single discretization. Nevertheless, we will also prove that some dynamical features of a generic conservative homeomorphism (such as the set of the periods of all periodic points) can be read on a sequence of finer and finer discretizations.

If $X$ is a sofic shift and $\varphi : X\rightarrow X$ is a homeomorphism such that ${\varphi }^{2} = {\text{id} }_{X} $ and $\varphi {\sigma }_{X} = { \sigma }_{X}^{- 1} \varphi $, the number of points in $X$ that are fixed by ${ \sigma }_{X}^{m} $ and ${ \sigma }_{X}^{n} \varphi , m= 1, 2, \ldots , n\in \mathbb{Z} $, is expressed in terms of a finite number of square matrices: the matrices are obtained from Krieger’s joint state chain of a sofic shift which is conjugate to $X$.

The aim of this paper is to study the spectrum of the $L^{p}$ Laplacian and the dynamics of the $L^{p}$ heat semigroup on non-compact locally symmetric spaces of higher rank. Our work here generalizes previously obtained results in the setting of locally symmetric spaces of rank one to higher rank spaces. Similarly as in the rank-one case, it turns out that the $L^{p}$ heat semigroup on $M$ has a certain chaotic behavior if $p\in (1,2)$, whereas for $p\geq 2$ such chaotic behavior never occurs.

In this paper, we develop a variational approach to study the dynamic of a homeomorphism on a compact metric space. In particular, we describe orbits along which any Lipschitz Lyapunov function has to be constant via a non-negative Lipschitz semi-distance. We give the link with Auslander’s notion of generalized recurrence, and recover in a different way some parts of a more recent work of Akin and Auslander.

A ($d$-parameter) basic nilsequence is a sequence of the form $\psi (n)= f({a}^{n} x)$,$n\in { \mathbb{Z} }^{d} $, where $x$ is a point of a compact nilmanifold $X$, $a$ is a translation on $X$, and$f\in C(X)$; a nilsequence is a uniform limit of basic nilsequences. If $X= G/ \Gamma $ is a compact nilmanifold, $Y$ is a subnilmanifold of $X$, $\mathop{(g(n))}\nolimits_{n\in { \mathbb{Z} }^{d} } $ is a polynomial sequence in $G$, and $f\in C(X)$, we show that the sequence $\phi (n)= \int \nolimits \nolimits_{g(n)Y} f$ is the sum of a basic nilsequence and a sequence that converges to zero in uniform density (a null-sequence). We also show that an integral of a family of nilsequences is a nilsequence plus a null-sequence. We deduce that for any invertible finite measure preserving system $(W, \mathcal{B} , \mu , T)$, polynomials ${p}_{1} , \ldots , {p}_{k} : { \mathbb{Z} }^{d} \longrightarrow \mathbb{Z} $, and sets ${A}_{1} , \ldots , {A}_{k} \in \mathcal{B} $, the sequence $\phi (n)= \mu ({T}^{{p}_{1} (n)} {A}_{1} \cap \cdots \cap {T}^{{p}_{k} (n)} {A}_{k} )$, $n\in { \mathbb{Z} }^{d} $, is the sum of a nilsequence and a null-sequence.