We characterize measure-theoretic sequence entropy pairs of continuous actions of abelian groups using mean sensitivity. This addresses an open question of Li and Yu [On mean sensitive tuples. J. Differential Equations 297 (2021), 175–200]. As a consequence of our results, we provide a simpler characterization of Kerr and Li’s independence sequence entropy pairs ($\mu $-IN-pairs) when the measure is ergodic and the group is abelian.

In this paper, we study the relationship of the Brouwer degree of a vector field with the dynamics of the induced flow. Analogous relations are studied for the index of a vector field. We obtain new forms of the Poincar é–Hopf theorem and of the Borsuk and Hirsch antipodal theorems. As an application, we calculate the Brouwer degree of the vector field of the Lorenz equations in isolating blocks of the Lorenz strange set.

Assume $G\prec H$ are groups and ${\cal A}\subseteq {\cal P}(G),\ {\cal B}\subseteq {\cal P}(H)$ are algebras of sets closed under left group translation. Under some additional assumptions we find algebraic connections between the Ellis [semi]groups of the G-flow $S({\cal A})$ and the H-flow $S({\cal B})$. We apply these results in the model theoretic context. Namely, assume G is a group definable in a model M and $M\prec ^* N$. Using weak heirs and weak coheirs we point out some algebraic connections between the Ellis semigroups $S_{ext,G}(M)$ and $S_{ext,G}(N)$. Assuming every minimal left ideal in $S_{ext,G}(N)$ is a group we prove that the Ellis groups of $S_{ext,G}(M)$ are isomorphic to closed subgroups of the Ellis groups of $S_{ext,G}(N)$.

In this paper, we give necessary conditions for an $N$-expansive homeomorphism of a compact metric space to be nonchaotic in the Li–Yorke sense. As application we give a partial answer to a conjecture in [2].

We prove that a finite set of natural numbers J satisfies that $J\cup \{0\}$ is not Sidon if and only if for any operator T, the disjoint hypercyclicity of $\{T^j:j\in J\}$ implies that T is weakly mixing. As an application we show the existence of a non-weakly mixing operator T such that $T\oplus T^2\oplus\cdots \oplus T^n$ is hypercyclic for every n.

We investigate tameness of Toeplitz shifts. By introducing the notion of extended Bratteli–Vershik diagrams, we show that such shifts with finite Toeplitz rank are tame if and only if there are at most countably many orbits of singular fibres over the maximal equicontinuous factor. The ideas are illustrated using the class of substitution shifts. A body of elaborate examples shows that the assumptions of our results cannot be relaxed.

We prove a generalization of Krieger’s embedding theorem, in the spirit of zero-error information theory. Specifically, given a mixing shift of finite type X, a mixing sofic shift Y, and a surjective sliding block code $\pi : X \to Y$, we give necessary and sufficient conditions for a subshift Z of topological entropy strictly lower than that of Y to admit an embedding $\psi : Z \to X$ such that $\pi \circ \psi $ is injective.

Given a dynamical system, we prove that the shortest distance between two n-orbits scales like n to a power even when the system has slow mixing properties, thus building and improving on results of Barros, Liao and the first author [On the shortest distance between orbits and the longest common substring problem. Adv. Math. 344 (2019), 311–339]. We also extend these results to flows. Finally, we give an example for which the shortest distance between two orbits has no scaling limit.

Let $\Sigma $ be a closed surface other than the sphere, the torus, the projective plane or the Klein bottle. We construct a continuum of probability measure preserving ergodic minimal profinite actions for the fundamental group of $\Sigma $ that are topologically free but not essentially free, a property that we call allostery. Moreover, the invariant random subgroups we obtain are pairwise distincts.

Inspired by a twist map theorem of Mather. we study recurrent invariant sets that are ordered like rigid rotation under the action of the lift of a bimodal circle map g to the k-fold cover. For each irrational in the rotation set’s interior, the collection of the k-fold ordered semi-Denjoy minimal sets with that rotation number contains a $(k-1)$-dimensional ball with the weak topology on their unique invariant measures. We also describe completely their periodic orbit analogs for rational rotation numbers. The main tool used is a generalization of a construction of Hedlund and Morse that generates symbolic analogs of these k-fold well-ordered invariant sets.

We exhibit, for arbitrary $\epsilon> 0$, subshifts admitting weakly mixing (probability) measures with word complexity p satisfying $\limsup p(q) / q < 1.5 + \epsilon $. For arbitrary $f(q) \to \infty $, said subshifts can be made to satisfy $p(q) < q + f(q)$ infinitely often. We establish that every subshift associated to a rank-one transformation (on a probability space) which is not an odometer satisfies $\limsup p(q) - 1.5q = \infty $ and that this is optimal for rank-ones.

We look at constructions of aperiodic subshifts of finite type (SFTs) on fundamental groups of graph of groups. In particular, we prove that all generalized Baumslag-Solitar groups (GBS) admit a strongly aperiodic SFT. Our proof is based on a structural theorem by Whyte and on two constructions of strongly aperiodic SFTs on $\mathbb {F}_n\times \mathbb {Z}$ and $BS(m,n)$ of our own. Our two constructions rely on a path-folding technique that lifts an SFT on $\mathbb {Z}^2$ inside an SFT on $\mathbb {F}_n\times \mathbb {Z}$ or an SFT on the hyperbolic plane inside an SFT on $BS(m,n)$. In the case of $\mathbb {F}_n\times \mathbb {Z}$, the path folding technique also preserves minimality, so that we get minimal strongly aperiodic SFTs on unimodular GBS groups.

We present sufficient conditions for the triviality of the automorphism group of regular Toeplitz subshifts and give a broad class of examples from the class of ${\mathcal B}$-free subshifts satisfying them, extending the work of Dymek [Automorphisms of Toeplitz ${\mathcal B}$-free systems. Bull. Pol. Acad. Sci. Math. 65(2) (2017), 139–152]. Additionally, we provide an example of a ${\mathcal B}$-free Toeplitz subshift whose automorphism group has elements of arbitrarily large finite order, answering Question 11 of S. Ferenczi et al [Sarnak’s conjecture: what’s new. Ergodic Theory and Dynamical Systems in their Interactions with Arithmetics and Combinatorics (Lecture Notes in Mathematics, 2213). Eds. S. Ferenczi, J. Kułaga-Przymus and M. Lemańczyk. Springer, Cham, 2018, pp. 163–235].

In this paper, we construct a uniformly recurrent infinite word of low complexity without uniform frequencies of letters. This shows the optimality of a bound of Boshernitzan, which gives a sufficient condition for a uniformly recurrent infinite word to admit uniform frequencies.

In this work, we explore the dynamical implications of a spectral sequence analysis of a filtered chain complex associated to a non-singular Morse–Smale (NMS) flow $\varphi $ on a closed orientable $3$-manifold $M^3$ with no heteroclinic trajectories connecting saddle periodic orbits. We introduce the novel concepts of cancellations and reductions of pairs of periodic orbits based on Franks’ morsification and Smale’s cancellation theorems. The main goal is to establish an algebraic-dynamical correspondence between the unfolding of this spectral sequence associated to $\varphi $ and a family of flows obtained by cancelling and reducing pairs of periodic orbits of $\varphi $ on $M^3$. This correspondence is achieved through a spectral sequence sweeping algorithm (SSSA), which determines the order in which these cancellations and reductions of periodic orbits occur, producing a family of NMS flows that reaches a core flow when the spectral sequence converges.

Given a locally finite graph $\Gamma $, an amenable subgroup G of graph automorphisms acting freely and almost transitively on its vertices, and a G-invariant activity function $\unicode{x3bb} $, consider the free energy $f_G(\Gamma ,\unicode{x3bb} )$ of the hardcore model defined on the set of independent sets in $\Gamma $ weighted by $\unicode{x3bb} $. Under the assumption that G is finitely generated and its word problem can be solved in exponential time, we define suitable ensembles of hardcore models and prove the following: if $\|\unicode{x3bb} \|_\infty < \unicode{x3bb} _c(\Delta )$, there exists a randomized $\epsilon $-additive approximation scheme for $f_G(\Gamma ,\unicode{x3bb} )$ that runs in time $\mathrm {poly}((1+\epsilon ^{-1})\lvert \Gamma /G \rvert )$, where $\unicode{x3bb} _c(\Delta )$ denotes the critical activity on the $\Delta $-regular tree. In addition, if G has a finite index linearly ordered subgroup such that its algebraic past can be decided in exponential time, we show that the algorithm can be chosen to be deterministic. However, we observe that if $\|\unicode{x3bb} \|_\infty> \unicode{x3bb} _c(\Delta )$, there is no efficient approximation scheme, unless $\mathrm {NP} = \mathrm {RP}$. This recovers the computational phase transition for the partition function of the hardcore model on finite graphs and provides an extension to the infinite setting. As an application in symbolic dynamics, we use these results to develop efficient approximation algorithms for the topological entropy of subshifts of finite type with enough safe symbols, we obtain a representation formula of pressure in terms of random trees of self-avoiding walks, and we provide new conditions for the uniqueness of the measure of maximal entropy based on the connective constant of a particular associated graph.

For linear nonuniform cellular automata (NUCA) which are local perturbations of linear CA over a group universe G and a finite-dimensional vector space alphabet V over an arbitrary field k, we investigate their Dedekind finiteness property, also known as the direct finiteness property, i.e., left or right invertibility implies invertibility. We say that the group G is $L^1$-surjunctive, resp. finitely $L^1$-surjunctive, if all such linear NUCA are automatically surjective whenever they are stably injective, resp. when in addition k is finite. In parallel, we introduce the ring $D^1(k[G])$ which is the Cartesian product $k[G] \times (k[G])[G]$ as an additive group but the multiplication is twisted in the second component. The ring $D^1(k[G])$ contains naturally the group ring $k[G]$ and we obtain a dynamical characterization of its stable finiteness for every field k in terms of the finite $L^1$-surjunctivity of the group G, which holds, for example, when G is residually finite or initially subamenable. Our results extend known results in the case of CA.

In this paper, we prove using elementary techniques that any group of diffeomorphisms acting on the 2-sphere and properly extending the conformal group of Möbius transformations must be at least 4-transitive or, more precisely, arc 4-transitive. As an important consequence, we derive that any such group must always contain an element of positive topological entropy. We also provide a self-contained characterization, in terms of transitivity, of the Möbius transformations within the full group of sphere diffeomorphisms.

We construct two new classes of topological dynamical systems; one is a factor of a one-sided shift of finite type while the second is a factor of the two-sided shift. The data are a finite graph which presents the shift of finite type, a second finite directed graph and a pair of embeddings of it into the first, satisfying certain conditions. The factor is then obtained from a simple idea based on binary expansion of real numbers. In both cases, we construct natural metrics on the factors and, in the second case, this makes the system a Smale space, in the sense of Ruelle. We compute various algebraic invariants for these systems, including the homology for Smale space developed by the author and the K-theory of various $C^{*}$-algebras associated to them, in terms of the pair of original graphs.

Given a subshift $\Sigma $ of finite type and a finite set S of finite words, let $\Sigma \langle S\rangle $ denote the subshift of $\Sigma $ that avoids S. We establish a general criterion under which we can bound the entropy perturbation $h(\Sigma ) - h(\Sigma \langle S\rangle )$ from above. As an application, we prove that this entropy difference tends to zero with a sequence of such sets $S_1, S_2,\ldots $ under various assumptions on the $S_i$.