In this short and elementary note, we study some ergodic optimization problems for circle expanding maps. We first make an observation that if a function is not far from being convex, then its calibrated sub-actions are closer to convex functions in a certain effective way. As an application of this simple observation, for a circle doubling map, we generalize a result of Bousch saying that translations of the cosine function are uniquely optimized by Sturmian measures. Our argument follows the mainline of Bousch’s original proof, while some technical part is simplified by the observation mentioned above, and no numerical calculation is needed.

We consider the unique measure of maximal entropy for proper 3-colorings of $\mathbb {Z}^{2}$, or equivalently, the so-called zero-slope Gibbs measure. Our main result is that this measure is Bernoulli, or equivalently, that it can be expressed as the image of a translation-equivariant function of independent and identically distributed random variables placed on $\mathbb {Z}^{2}$. Along the way, we obtain various estimates on the mixing properties of this measure.

We initiate the study of C*-algebras and groupoids arising from left regular representations of Garside categories, a notion which originated from the study of Braid groups. Every higher rank graph is a Garside category in a natural way. We develop a general classification result for closed invariant subspaces of our groupoids as well as criteria for topological freeness and local contractiveness, properties which are relevant for the structure of the corresponding C*-algebras. Our results provide a conceptual explanation for previous results on gauge-invariant ideals of higher rank graph C*-algebras. As another application, we give a complete analysis of the ideal structures of C*-algebras generated by left regular representations of Artin–Tits monoids.

We generalize Berg’s notion of quasi-disjointness to actions of countable groups and prove that every measurably distal system is quasi-disjoint from every measure-preserving system. As a corollary, we obtain easy to check necessary and sufficient conditions for two systems to be disjoint, provided one of them is measurably distal. We also obtain a Wiener–Wintner-type theorem for countable amenable groups with distal weights and applications to weighted multiple ergodic averages and multiple recurrence.

We prove the convergence and ergodicity of a wide class of real and higher-dimensional continued fraction algorithms, including folded and $\alpha $-type variants of complex, quaternionic, octonionic, and Heisenberg continued fractions, which we combine under the framework of Iwasawa continued fractions. The proof is based on the interplay of continued fractions and hyperbolic geometry, the ergodicity of geodesic flow in associated modular manifolds, and a variation on the notion of geodesic coding that we refer to as geodesic marking. As a corollary of our study of markable geodesics, we obtain a generalization of Serret’s tail-equivalence theorem for almost all points. The results are new even in the case of some real and complex continued fractions.

We consider the two-dimensional shrinking target problem in beta dynamical systems (for general $\beta>1$) with general errors of approximation. Let $f, g$ be two positive continuous functions. For any $x_0,y_0\in [0,1]$, define the shrinking target set

$$ \begin{align*}E(T_\beta, f,g):=\left\{(x,y)\in [0,1]^2: \begin{array}{@{}ll@{}} \lvert T_{\beta}^{n}x-x_{0}\rvert <e^{-S_nf(x)}\\[1ex] \lvert T_{\beta}^{n}y-y_{0}\rvert < e^{-S_ng(y)} \end{array} \ {\text{for infinitely many}} \ n\in \mathbb N \right\}, \end{align*} $$

where $S_nf(x)=\sum _{j=0}^{n-1}f(T_\beta ^jx)$ is the Birkhoff sum. We calculate the Hausdorff dimension of this set and prove that it is the solution to some pressure function. This represents the first result of this kind for the higher-dimensional beta dynamical systems.

Let $(G,+)$ be a compact, abelian, and metrizable topological group. In this group we take $g\in G$ such that the corresponding automorphism $\tau _g$ is ergodic. The main result of this paper is a new ergodic theorem for functions in $L^1(G,M)$, where M is a Hadamard space. The novelty of our result is that we use inductive means to average the elements of the orbit $\{\tau _g^n(h)\}_{n\in \mathbb {N}}$. The advantage of inductive means is that they can be explicitly computed in many important examples. The proof of the ergodic theorem is done firstly for continuous functions, and then it is extended to $L^1$ functions. The extension is based on a new construction of mollifiers in Hadamard spaces. This construction has the advantage that it only uses the metric structure and the existence of barycenters, and does not require the existence of an underlying vector space. For this reason, it can be used in any Hadamard space, in contrast to those results that need to use the tangent space or some chart to define the mollifier.

Given a self-similar set K defined from an iterated function system $\Gamma =(\gamma _{1},\ldots ,\gamma _{d})$ and a set of functions $H=\{h_{i}:K\to \mathbb {R}\}_{i=1}^{d}$ satisfying suitable conditions, we define a generalized gauge action on Kajiwara–Watatani algebras $\mathcal {O}_{\Gamma }$ and their Toeplitz extensions $\mathcal {T}_{\Gamma }$. We then characterize the KMS states for this action. For each $\beta \in (0,\infty )$, there is a Ruelle operator $\mathcal {L}_{H,\beta }$, and the existence of KMS states at inverse temperature $\beta $ is related to this operator. The critical inverse temperature $\beta _{c}$ is such that $\mathcal {L}_{H,\beta _{c}}$ has spectral radius 1. If $\beta <\beta _{c}$, there are no KMS states on $\mathcal {O}_{\Gamma }$ and $\mathcal {T}_{\Gamma }$; if $\beta =\beta _{c}$, there is a unique KMS state on $\mathcal {O}_{\Gamma }$ and $\mathcal {T}_{\Gamma }$ which is given by the eigenmeasure of $\mathcal {L}_{H,\beta _{c}}$; and if $\beta>\beta _{c}$, including $\beta =\infty $, the extreme points of the set of KMS states on $\mathcal {T}_{\Gamma }$ are parametrized by the elements of K and on $\mathcal {O}_{\Gamma }$ by the set of branched points.

Kingman’s subadditive ergodic theorem is traditionally proved in the setting of a measure-preserving invertible transformation T of a measure space $(X, \mu )$. We use a theorem of Silva and Thieullen to extend the theorem to the setting of a not necessarily invertible transformation, which is non-singular under the assumption that $\mu $ and $\mu \circ T$ have the same null sets. Using this, we are able to produce versions of the Furstenberg–Kesten theorem and the Oseledeč ergodic theorem for products of random matrices without the assumption that the transformation is either invertible or measure-preserving.

We study approximation schemes for shift spaces over a finite alphabet using (pseudo)metrics connected to Ornstein’s ${\bar d}$ metric. This leads to a class of shift spaces we call ${\bar d}$-approachable. A shift space is ${\bar d}$-approachable when its canonical sequence of Markov approximations converges to it also in the ${\bar d}$ sense. We give a topological characterization of chain-mixing ${\bar d}$-approachable shift spaces. As an application we provide a new criterion for entropy density of ergodic measures. Entropy density of a shift space means that every invariant measure $\mu $ of such a shift space is the weak$^*$ limit of a sequence $\mu _n$ of ergodic measures with the corresponding sequence of entropies $h(\mu _n)$ converging to $h(\mu )$. We prove ergodic measures are entropy-dense for every shift space that can be approximated in the ${\bar d}$ pseudometric by a sequence of transitive sofic shifts. This criterion can be applied to many examples that were beyond the reach of previously known techniques including hereditary $\mathscr {B}$-free shifts and some minimal or proximal systems. The class of symbolic dynamical systems covered by our results includes also shift spaces where entropy density was established previously using the (almost) specification property.

We establish exponential decay of correlations of all orders for locally G-accessible isometric extensions of transitive Anosov flows, under the assumption that the strong stable and strong unstable distributions of the base Anosov flow are $C^1$. This is accomplished by translating accessibility properties of the extension into local non-integrability estimates measured by infinitesimal transitivity groups used by Dolgopyat, from which we obtain contraction properties for a class of ‘twisted’ symbolic transfer operators.

Motivated by fractal geometry of self-affine carpets and sponges, Feng and Huang [J. Math. Pures Appl. 106(9) (2016), 411–452] introduced weighted topological entropy and pressure for factor maps between dynamical systems, and proved variational principles for them. We introduce a new approach to this theory. Our new definitions of weighted topological entropy and pressure are very different from the original definitions of Feng and Huang. The equivalence of the two definitions seems highly non-trivial. Their equivalence can be seen as a generalization of the dimension formula for the Bedford–McMullen carpet in purely topological terms.

In this paper, directional sequence entropy and directional Kronecker algebra for $\mathbb {Z}^q$-systems are introduced. The relation between sequence entropy and directional sequence entropy are established. Meanwhile, directional discrete spectrum systems and directional null systems are defined. It is shown that a $\mathbb {Z}^q$-system has directional discrete spectrum if and only if it is directional null. Moreover, it turns out that a $\mathbb {Z}^q$-system has directional discrete spectrum along q linearly independent directions if and only if it has discrete spectrum.

For a polynomial progression

$$ \begin{align*}(x,\; x+P_1(y),\ldots,\; x+P_{t}(y)),\end{align*} $$

$P_1, \ldots ,\!P_t$

$$ \begin{align*}(x,\; x+y^2,\; x+2y^2,\; x+y^3,\; x+2y^3),\end{align*} $$

$\mathbb {Z}/N\mathbb {Z}$

$\mathbb {Z}/N\mathbb {Z}$

We show that a piecewise monotonic map with positive topological entropy satisfies the level-2 large deviation principle with respect to the unique measure of maximal entropy under the conditions that the corresponding Markov diagram is irreducible and that the periodic measures of the map are dense in the set of ergodic measures. This result can apply to a broad class of piecewise monotonic maps, such as monotonic mod one transformations and piecewise monotonic maps with two monotonic pieces.

We prove that the asymptotics of ergodic integrals along an invariant foliation of a toral Anosov diffeomorphism, or of a pseudo-Anosov diffeomorphism on a compact orientable surface of higher genus, is determined (up to a logarithmic error) by the action of the diffeomorphism on the cohomology of the surface. As a consequence of our argument and of the results of Giulietti and Liverani [Parabolic dynamics and anisotropic Banach spaces. J. Eur. Math. Soc. (JEMS) 21(9) (2019), 2793–2858] on horospherical averages, toral Anosov diffeomorphisms have no Ruelle resonances in the open interval $(1, e^{h_{\mathrm {top}}})$.

We prove that if two topologically free and entropy regular actions of countable sofic groups on compact metrizable spaces are continuously orbit equivalent, and each group either (i) contains a w-normal amenable subgroup which is neither locally finite nor virtually cyclic, or (ii) is a non-locally-finite product of two infinite groups, then the actions have the same sofic topological entropy. This fact is then used to show that if two free uniquely ergodic and entropy regular probability-measure-preserving actions of such groups are boundedly orbit equivalent then the actions have the same sofic measure entropy. Our arguments are based on a relativization of property SC to sofic approximations and yield more general entropy inequalities.

In the present article, we study the following problem. Let $\boldsymbol {G}$ be a linear algebraic group over $\mathbb {Q}$, let $\Gamma$ be an arithmetic lattice, and let $\boldsymbol {H}$ be an observable $\mathbb {Q}$-subgroup. There is a $H$-invariant measure $\mu _H$ supported on the closed submanifold $H\Gamma /\Gamma$. Given a sequence $(g_n)$ in $G$, we study the limiting behavior of $(g_n)_*\mu _H$ under the weak-$*$ topology. In the non-divergent case, we give a rather complete classification. We further supplement this by giving a criterion of non-divergence and prove non-divergence for arbitrary sequence $(g_n)$ for certain large $\boldsymbol {H}$. We also discuss some examples and applications of our result. This work can be viewed as a natural extension of the work of Eskin–Mozes–Shah and Shapira–Zheng.

We give a finitary criterion for the convergence of measures on non-elementary geometrically finite hyperbolic orbifolds to the unique measure of maximal entropy. We give an entropy criterion controlling escape of mass to the cusps of the orbifold. Using this criterion, we prove new results on the distribution of collections of closed geodesics on such an orbifold, and as a corollary, we prove the equidistribution of closed geodesics up to a certain length in amenable regular covers of geometrically finite orbifolds.

We construct an invariant measure for a piecewise analytic interval map whose Lyapunov exponent is not defined. Moreover, for a set of full measure, the pointwise Lyapunov exponent is not defined. This map has a Lorenz-like singularity and non-flat critical points.