We introduce a notion of barycenter of a probability measure related to the symmetric mean of a collection of non-negative real numbers. Our definition is inspired by the work of Halász and Székely, who in 1976 proved a law of large numbers for symmetric means. We study the analytic properties of this Halász–Székely barycenter. We establish fundamental inequalities that relate the symmetric mean of a list of non-negative real numbers with the barycenter of the measure uniformly supported on these points. As consequence, we go on to establish an ergodic theorem stating that the symmetric means of a sequence of dynamical observations converge to the Halász–Székely barycenter of the corresponding distribution.

The standard approach to applying ray theory to solving Maxwell’s equations in the large wave-number limit involves seeking solutions that have (i) an oscillatory exponential with a phase term that is linear in the wave-number and (ii) has an amplitude profile expressed in terms of inverse powers of that wave-number. The Friedlander–Keller modification includes an additional power of this wave-number in the phase of the wave structure, and this additional term is crucial when analysing certain wave phenomena such as creeping and whispering gallery wave propagation. However, other wave phenomena necessitate a generalisation of this theory. The purposes of this paper are to provide a ‘generalised’ Friedlander–Keller ray ansatz for Maxwell’s equations to obtain a new set of field equations for the various phase terms and amplitude of the wave structure; these are then solved subject to boundary data conforming to wave-fronts that are either specified or general. These examples specifically require this generalisation as they are not amenable to classic ray theory.

Consider a topologically transitive countable Markov shift $\Sigma $ and a summable locally constant potential $\phi $ with finite Gurevich pressure and $\mathrm {Var}_1(\phi ) < \infty $. We prove the existence of the limit $\lim _{t \to \infty } \mu _t$ in the weak$^\star $ topology, where $\mu _t$ is the unique equilibrium state associated to the potential $t\phi $. In addition, we present examples where the limit at zero temperature exists for potentials satisfying more general conditions.

This paper provides a full classification of the dynamics for continuous-time Markov chains (CTMCs) on the nonnegative integers with polynomial transition rate functions and without arbitrary large backward jumps. Such stochastic processes are abundant in applications, in particular in biology. More precisely, for CTMCs of bounded jumps, we provide necessary and sufficient conditions in terms of calculable parameters for explosivity, recurrence versus transience, positive recurrence versus null recurrence, certain absorption, and implosivity. Simple sufficient conditions for exponential ergodicity of stationary distributions and quasi-stationary distributions as well as existence and nonexistence of moments of hitting times are also obtained. Similar simple sufficient conditions for the aforementioned dynamics together with their opposite dynamics are established for CTMCs with unbounded forward jumps. Finally, we apply our results to stochastic reaction networks, an extended class of branching processes, a general bursty single-cell stochastic gene expression model, and population processes, none of which are birth–death processes. The approach is based on a mixture of Lyapunov–Foster-type results, the classical semimartingale approach, and estimates of stationary measures.

We find generalized conformal measures and equilibrium states for random dynamics generated by Ruelle expanding maps, under which the dynamics exhibits exponential decay of correlations. This extends results by Baladi [Correlation spectrum of quenched and annealed equilibrium states for random expanding maps. Comm. Math. Phys. 186 (1997), 671–700] and Carvalho et al [Semigroup actions of expanding maps. J. Stat. Phys. 116(1) (2017), 114–136], where the randomness is driven by an independent and identically distributed process and the phase space is assumed to be compact. We give applications in the context of weighted non-autonomous iterated function systems, free semigroup actions and introduce a boundary of equilibria for not necessarily free semigroup actions.

In this paper, we investigate pigeonhole statistics for the fractional parts of the sequence $\sqrt {n}$. Namely, we partition the unit circle $ \mathbb {T} = \mathbb {R}/\mathbb {Z}$ into N intervals and show that the proportion of intervals containing exactly j points of the sequence $(\sqrt {n} + \mathbb {Z})_{n=1}^N$ converges in the limit as $N \to \infty $. More generally, we investigate how the limiting distribution of the first $sN$ points of the sequence varies with the parameter $s \geq 0$. A natural way to examine this is via point processes—random measures on $[0,\infty )$ which represent the arrival times of the points of our sequence to a random interval from our partition. We show that the sequence of point processes we obtain converges in distribution and give an explicit description of the limiting process in terms of random affine unimodular lattices. Our work uses ergodic theory in the space of affine unimodular lattices, building upon work of Elkies and McMullen [Gaps in $\sqrt {n}$ mod 1 and ergodic theory. Duke Math. J. 123 (2004), 95–139]. We prove a generalisation of equidistribution of rational points on expanding horocycles in the modular surface, working instead on nonlinear horocycle sections.

We investigate dynamical systems consisting of a locally compact Hausdorff space equipped with a partially defined local homeomorphism. Important examples of such systems include self-covering maps, one-sided shifts of finite type and, more generally, the boundary-path spaces of directed and topological graphs. We characterize the topological conjugacy of these systems in terms of isomorphisms of their associated groupoids and C*-algebras. This significantly generalizes recent work of Matsumoto and of the second- and third-named authors.

We study the quasi-stationary behavior of the birth–death process with an entrance boundary at infinity. We give by the h-transform an alternative and simpler proof for the exponential convergence of conditioned distributions to a unique quasi-stationary distribution in the total variation norm. In addition, we also show that starting from any initial distribution the conditional probability converges to the unique quasi-stationary distribution exponentially fast in the $\psi$-norm.

We prove effective equidistribution of horospherical flows in $\operatorname {SO}(n,1)^{\circ } / \Gamma $ when $\Gamma $ is geometrically finite and the frame flow is exponentially mixing for the Bowen–Margulis–Sullivan measure. We also discuss settings in which such an exponential mixing result is known to hold. As part of the proof, we show that the Patterson–Sullivan measure satisfies some friendly like properties when $\Gamma $ is geometrically finite.

We generalize a result of Lindenstrauss on the interplay between measurable and topological dynamics which shows that every separable ergodic measurably distal dynamical system has a minimal distal model. We show that such a model can, in fact, be chosen completely canonically. The construction is performed by going through the Furstenberg–Zimmer tower of a measurably distal system and showing that at each step there is a simple and canonical distal minimal model. This hinges on a new characterization of isometric extensions in topological dynamics.

A fundamental question in the field of cohomology of dynamical systems is to determine when there are solutions to the coboundary equation:

$$ \begin{align*} f = g - g \circ T. \end{align*} $$

In many cases, T is given to be an ergodic invertible measure-preserving transformation on a standard probability space $(X, {\mathcal B}, \mu )$ and is contained in $L^p$ for $p \geq 0$. We extend previous results by showing for any measurable f that is non-zero on a set of positive measure, the class of measure-preserving T with a measurable solution g is meager (including the case where $\int _X f\,d\mu = 0$). From this fact, a natural question arises: given f, does there always exist a solution pair T and g? In regards to this question, our main results are as follows. Given measurable f, there exist an ergodic invertible measure-preserving transformation T and measurable function g such that $f(x) = g(x) - g(Tx)$ for almost every (a.e.) $x\in X$, if and only if $\int _{f> 0} f\,d\mu = - \int _{f < 0} f\,d\mu $ (whether finite or $\infty $). Given mean-zero $f \in L^p(\mu )$ for $p \geq 1$, there exist an ergodic invertible measure-preserving T and $g \in L^{p-1}(\mu )$ such that $f(x) = g(x) - g( Tx )$ for a.e. $x \in X$. In some sense, the previous existence result is the best possible. For $p \geq 1$, there exists a dense $G_{\delta }$ set of mean-zero $f \in L^p(\mu )$ such that for any ergodic invertible measure-preserving T and any measurable g such that $f(x) = g(x) - g(Tx)$ almost everywhere, then $g \notin L^q(\mu )$ for $q> p - 1$. Finally, it is shown that we cannot expect finite moments for solutions g, when $f \in L^1(\mu )$. In particular, given any such that $\lim _{x\to \infty } \phi (x) = \infty $, there exist mean-zero $f \in L^1(\mu )$ such that for any solutions T and g, the transfer function g satisfies:

$$ \begin{align*} \int_{X} \phi ( | g(x) | )\,d\mu = \infty. \end{align*} $$

Furstenberg–Zimmer structure theory refers to the extension of the dichotomy between the compact and weakly mixing parts of a measure-preserving dynamical system and the algebraic and geometric descriptions of such parts to a conditional setting, where such dichotomy is established relative to a factor and conditional analogs of those algebraic and geometric descriptions are sought. Although the unconditional dichotomy and the characterizations are known for arbitrary systems, the relative situation is understood under certain countability and separability hypotheses on the underlying groups and spaces. The aim of this article is to remove these restrictions in the relative situation and establish a Furstenberg–Zimmer structure theory in full generality. As an independent byproduct, we establish a connection between the relative analysis of systems in ergodic theory and the internal logic in certain Boolean topoi.

We prove that many, but not all, injective factors arise as crossed products by nonsingular Bernoulli actions of the group $\mathbb {Z}$. We obtain this result by proving a completely general result on the ergodicity, type and Krieger’s associated flow for Bernoulli shifts with arbitrary base spaces. We prove that the associated flow must satisfy a structural property of infinite divisibility. Conversely, we prove that all almost periodic flows, as well as many other ergodic flows, do arise as associated flow of a weakly mixing Bernoulli action of any infinite amenable group. As a byproduct, we prove that all injective factors with almost periodic flow of weights are infinite tensor products of $2 \times 2$ matrices. Finally, we construct Poisson suspension actions with prescribed associated flow for any locally compact second countable group that does not have property (T).

We introduce a class of rank-one transformations, which we call extremely elevated staircase transformations. We prove that they are measure-theoretically mixing and, for any $f : \mathbb {N} \to \mathbb {N}$ with $f(n)/n$ increasing and $\sum 1/f(n) < \infty $, that there exists an extremely elevated staircase with word complexity $p(n) = o(f(n))$. This improves the previously lowest known complexity for mixing subshifts, resolving a conjecture of Ferenczi.

Consider the extended hull of a weak model set together with its natural shift action. Equip the extended hull with the Mirsky measure, which is a certain natural pattern frequency measure. It is known that the extended hull is a measure-theoretic factor of some group rotation, which is called the underlying torus. Among other results, in the article Periods and factors of weak model sets, we showed that the extended hull is isomorphic to a factor group of the torus, where certain periods of the window of the weak model set have been factored out. This was proved for weak model sets having a compact window. In this note, we argue that the same results hold for arbitrary measurable and relatively compact windows. Our arguments crucially rely on Moody’s work on uniform distribution in model sets. We also discuss implications for the diffraction of such weak model sets and discuss a new class of examples which are generic for the Mirsky measure.

The f-invariant is an isomorphism invariant of free-group measure-preserving actions introduced by Lewis Bowen, who first used it to show that two finite-entropy Bernoulli shifts over a finitely generated free group can be isomorphic only if their base measures have the same Shannon entropy. Bowen also showed that the f-invariant is a variant of sofic entropy; in particular, it is the exponential growth rate of the expected number of good models over a uniform random homomorphism. In this paper we present an analogous formula for the relative f-invariant and use it to prove a formula for the exponential growth rate of the expected number of good models over a random sofic approximation which is a type of stochastic block model.

Let $(X_k)_{k\geq 0}$ be a stationary and ergodic process with joint distribution $\mu $, where the random variables $X_k$ take values in a finite set $\mathcal {A}$. Let $R_n$ be the first time this process repeats its first n symbols of output. It is well known that $({1}/{n})\log R_n$ converges almost surely to the entropy of the process. Refined properties of $R_n$ (large deviations, multifractality, etc) are encoded in the return-time $L^q$-spectrum defined as

provided the limit exists. We consider the case where $(X_k)_{k\geq 0}$ is distributed according to the equilibrium state of a potential with summable variation, and we prove that

where $P((1-q)\varphi )$ is the topological pressure of $(1-q)\varphi $, the supremum is taken over all shift-invariant measures, and $q_\varphi ^*$ is the unique solution of $P((1-q)\varphi ) =\sup _\eta \int \varphi \,d\eta $. Unexpectedly, this spectrum does not coincide with the $L^q$-spectrum of $\mu _\varphi $, which is $P((1-q)\varphi )$, and it does not coincide with the waiting-time $L^q$-spectrum in general. In fact, the return-time $L^q$-spectrum coincides with the waiting-time $L^q$-spectrum if and only if the equilibrium state of $\varphi $ is the measure of maximal entropy. As a by-product, we also improve the large deviation asymptotics of $({1}/{n})\log R_n$.

It is shown that each locally compact second countable non-(T) group G admits non-strongly ergodic weakly mixing IDPFT Poisson actions of any possible Krieger type. These actions are amenable if and only if G is amenable. If G has the Haagerup property, then (and only then) these actions can be chosen of 0-type. If G is amenable, then G admits weakly mixing Bernoulli actions of arbitrary Krieger type.

We prove an extension of the Moore–Schmidt theorem on the triviality of the first cohomology class of cocycles for the action of an arbitrary discrete group on an arbitrary measure space and for cocycles with values in an arbitrary compact Hausdorff abelian group. The proof relies on a ‘conditional’ Pontryagin duality for spaces of abstract measurable maps.

In this text, we provide a fully rigorous and complete proof of E.H. Lieb’s statement that (topological) entropy of square ice (or six-vertex model, XXZ spin chain for anisotropy parameter $\Delta =1/2$) is equal to $\tfrac 32\log _{2} (4/3)$.