In this paper, we prove a quantitative equidistribution theorem for polynomial sequences in a nilmanifold, where the average is taken along spheres instead of cubes. To be more precise, let $\Omega \subseteq \mathbb {Z}^{d}$ be the preimage of a sphere $\mathbb {F}_{p}^{d}$ under the natural embedding from $\mathbb {Z}^{d}$ to $\mathbb {F}_{p}^{d}$. We show that if a rational polynomial sequence $(g(n)\Gamma )_{n\in \Omega }$ is not equidistributed on a nilmanifold $G/\Gamma $, then there exists a non-trivial horizontal character $\eta $ of $G/\Gamma $ such that $\eta \circ g \,\mod \mathbb {Z}$ vanishes on $\Omega $.

We study quasi-stationary distributions and quasi-limiting behaviour of Markov chains in general reducible state spaces with absorption. First, we consider state spaces that can be decomposed into two successive subsets (with communication possible in a single direction), differentiating between three situations, and characterize the exponential order of magnitude and the exact polynomial correction, called the polynomial convergence parameter, for the leading-order term of the semigroup for large time. Second, we consider general Markov chains with finitely or countably many communication classes by applying the first results iteratively over the communication classes of the chain. We conclude with an application of these results to the case of denumerable state spaces, where we prove existence for a quasi-stationary distribution without assuming irreducibility before absorption, but only aperiodicity, existence of a Lyapunov function, and existence of a point with almost surely finite return time.

In this paper we prove disintegration results for self-conformal measures and affinely irreducible self-similar measures. The measures appearing in the disintegration resemble self-conformal/self-similar measures for iterated function systems satisfying the strong separation condition. We use these disintegration statements to prove new results on the Diophantine properties of these measures.

We prove that when the Aubry set for a Lipschitz continuous potential is a subshift of finite type, then the pressure function converges exponentially fast to its asymptote as the temperature goes to 0. The speed of convergence turns out to be the unique eigenvalue for the matrix whose entries are the costs between the different irreducible pieces of the Aubry set. For a special case of Walters potential, we show that perturbations of that potential that go faster to zero than the pressure do not change the selection, neither for the subaction nor for the limit measure, a zero temperature.

Let $\gamma _{n}= O (\log ^{-c}n)$ and let $\nu $ be the infinite product measure whose nth marginal is Bernoulli $(1/2+\gamma _{n})$. We show that $c=1/2$ is the threshold, above which $\nu $-almost every point is simply Poisson generic in the sense of Peres and Weiss, and below which this can fail. This provides a range in which $\nu $ is singular with respect to the uniform product measure, but $\nu $-almost every point is simply Poisson generic.

We investigate a specific class of irreducible, level-dependent, discrete-time, GI/M/1-type Markov chains. The transition matrices possess a block lower-Hessenberg structure, which shows asymptotic convergence along the rows as the level approaches infinity. Criteria are presented for recurrence, transience, positive recurrence, geometric ergodicity, and geometric transience in terms of elements of the transition matrices. These criteria are established by employing drift functions and matrix-generating functions. Furthermore, we discuss the extension of the main results to the continuous-time case.

In this paper, we build some ergodic theorems involving the function $\Omega $, where $\Omega (n)$ denotes the number of prime factors of a natural number n counted with multiplicities. As a combinatorial application, it is shown that for any $k\in \mathbb {N}$ and every $A\subset \mathbb {N}$ with positive upper Banach density, there are $a,d\in \mathbb {N}$ such that $a,a+d,\ldots, a+kd,a+\Omega(d)\in A.$

Recently, Barros et al. [‘On the shortest distance between orbits and the longest common substring problem’, Adv. Math. 344 (2019), 311–339] adopted a dynamical system perspective to study the decay of the shortest distance between orbits. We calculate the Hausdorff dimensions of the exceptional sets arising from the shortest distance between orbits in conformal iterated function systems.

We show that the dynamical system associated by Putnam to a pair of graph embeddings is identical to the shift map on the limit space of a self-similar groupoid action on a graph. Moreover, performing a certain out-split on said graph gives rise to a Katsura–Exel–Pardo groupoid action on the out-split graph whose associated limit space dynamical system is conjugate to the previous one. We characterise the self-similar properties of these groupoids in terms of properties of their defining data, two matrices A, B. We prove a large class of the associated limit spaces are bundles of circles and points that fibre over a totally disconnected space, and the dynamics restricted to each circle are of the form $z\to z^{n}$. Moreover, we find a planar embedding of these spaces, thereby answering a question Putnam posed in his paper.

We introduce positive correspondences as right $C^*$-modules with left actions given by completely positive maps. Positive correspondences form a semi-category that contains the $C^*$-correspondence (Enchilada) category as a ‘retract’. Kasparov’s KSGNS construction provides a semi-functor from this semi-category onto the $C^*$-correspondence category. The need for left actions by completely positive maps appears naturally when we consider morphisms between Cuntz–Pimsner algebras, and we describe classes of examples arising from projections on $C^*$-correspondences and Fock spaces, as well as examples from conjugation by bi-Hilbertian bimodules of finite index.

We establish a polynomial ergodic theorem for actions of the affine group of a countable field K. As an application, we deduce—via a variant of Furstenberg’s correspondence principle—that for fields of characteristic zero, any ‘large’ set $E\subset K$ contains ‘many’ patterns of the form $\{p(u)+v,uv\}$, for every non-constant polynomial $p(x)\in K[x]$. Our methods are flexible enough that they allow us to recover analogous density results in the setting of finite fields and, with the aid of a finitistic variant of Bergelson’s ‘colouring trick’, show that for $r\in \mathbb N$ fixed, any r-colouring of a large enough finite field will contain monochromatic patterns of the form $\{u,p(u)+v,uv\}$. In a different direction, we obtain a double ergodic theorem for actions of the affine group of a countable field. An adaptation of the argument for affine actions of finite fields leads to a generalization of a theorem of Shkredov. Finally, to highlight the utility of the aforementioned finitistic ‘colouring trick’, we provide a conditional, elementary generalization of Green and Sanders’ $\{u,v,u+v,uv\}$ theorem.

We establish large deviation estimates related to the Darling–Kac theorem and generalized arcsine laws for occupation and waiting times of ergodic transformations preserving an infinite measure, such as non-uniformly expanding interval maps with indifferent fixed points. For the proof, we imitate the study of generalized arcsine laws for occupation times of one-dimensional diffusion processes and adopt a method of double Laplace transform.

For full shifts on finite alphabets, Coelho and Quas [Criteria for $\overline {d}$-continuity. Trans. Amer. Math. Soc. 350(8) (1998), 3257–3268] showed that the map that sends a Hölder continuous potential $\phi $ to its equilibrium state $\mu _\phi $ is $\overline {d}$-continuous. We extend this result to the setting of full shifts on countable (infinite) alphabets. As part of the proof, we show that the map that sends a strongly positive recurrent potential to its normalization is continuous for potentials on mixing countable state Markov shifts.

In a previous paper, the authors extended Mirzakhani’s (almost-everywhere defined) measurable conjugacy between the earthquake and horocycle flows to a measurable bijection. In this one, we analyze the continuity properties of this map and its inverse, proving that both are continuous at many points and in many directions. This lets us transfer measure convergence between the two systems, allowing us to pull back results from Teichmüller dynamics to deduce analogous statements for the earthquake flow.

Given a topologically transitive system on the unit interval, one can investigate the cover time, that is, the time for an orbit to reach a certain level of resolution in the repeller. We introduce a new notion of dimension, namely the stretched Minkowski dimension, and show that under mixing conditions, the asymptotics of typical cover times are determined by Minkowski dimensions when they are finite, or by stretched Minkowski dimensions otherwise. For application, we show that for countably full-branched affine maps, results using the usual Minkowski dimensions fail to give a finite limit of cover times, whilst the stretched version gives a finite limit. In addition, cover times for irrational rotations are calculated as counterexamples due to the absence of mixing.

In this paper, we establish variational principles for the metric mean dimension of random dynamical systems with infinite topological entropy. This is based on four types of measure-theoretic ϵ-entropies: Kolmogorov-Sinai ϵ-entropy, Shapira’s ϵ-entropy, Katok’s ϵ-entropy and Brin–Katok local ϵ-entropy. The variational principle, as a fundamental theorem, links topological dynamics and ergodic theory.

We define two types of the α-Farey maps Fα and $F_{\alpha, \flat}$ for $0 \lt \alpha \lt \tfrac{1}{2}$, which were previously defined only for $\tfrac{1}{2} \le \alpha \le 1$ by Natsui (2004). Then, for each $0 \lt \alpha \lt \tfrac{1}{2}$, we construct the natural extension maps on the plane and show that the natural extension of $F_{\alpha, \flat}$ is metrically isomorphic to the natural extension of the original Farey map. As an application, we show that the set of normal numbers associated with α-continued fractions does not vary by the choice of α, $0 \lt \alpha \lt 1$. This extends the result by Kraaikamp and Nakada (2000).

In this work, we study rates of mixing for small independent and identically distributed random perturbations of contracting Lorenz maps sufficiently close to a Rovella parameter. By using a random Young tower construction, we prove that this random system has exponential decay of correlations.

We strengthen the maximal ergodic theorem for actions of groups of polynomial growth to a form involving jump quantity, which is the sharpest result among the family of variational or maximal ergodic theorems. As two applications, we first obtain the upcrossing inequalities with exponential decay of ergodic averages and then provide an explicit bound on the convergence rate such that the ergodic averages with strongly continuous regular group actions are metastable (or locally stable) on a large interval. Before exploiting the transference techniques, we actually obtain a stronger result—the jump estimates on a metric space with a measure not necessarily doubling. The ideas or techniques involve martingale theory, non-doubling Calderón–Zygmund theory, almost orthogonality argument, and some delicate geometric argument involving the balls and the cubes on a group equipped with a not necessarily doubling measure.

We show that on a $\sigma $-finite measure-preserving system $X = (X,\nu , T)$, the non-conventional ergodic averages

$$ \begin{align*} \mathbb{E}_{n \in [N]} \Lambda(n) f(T^n x) g(T^{P(n)} x) \end{align*} $$

$f \in L^{p_1}(X)$

$g \in L^{p_2}(X)$

$1/p_1 + 1/p_2 \leq 1$

$2$

$\Lambda $

$1$

$\mu $