In this article, we consider a closed rank-one Riemannian manifold M without focal points. Let $P(t)$ be the set of free-homotopy classes containing a closed geodesic on M with length at most t, and $\# P(t)$ its cardinality. We obtain the following Margulis-type asymptotic estimates:

$$ \begin{align*}\lim_{t\to \infty}\#P(t)/\frac{e^{ht}}{ht}=1\end{align*} $$

Piecewise contractions (PCs) are piecewise smooth maps that decrease the distance between pairs of points in the same domain of continuity. The dynamics of a variety of systems is described by PCs. During the last decade, much effort has been devoted to proving that in parameterized families of one-dimensional PCs, the $\omega $-limit set of a typical PC consists of finitely many periodic orbits while there exist atypical PCs with Cantor $\omega $-limit sets. In this article, we extend these results to the multi-dimensional case. More precisely, we provide criteria to show that an arbitrary family $\{f_{\mu }\}_{\mu \in U}$ of locally bi-Lipschitz piecewise contractions $f_\mu :X\to X$ defined on a compact metric space X is asymptotically periodic for Lebesgue almost every parameter $\mu $ running over an open subset U of the M-dimensional Euclidean space $\mathbb {R}^M$. As a corollary of our results, we prove that piecewise affine contractions of $\mathbb {R}^d$ defined in generic polyhedral partitions are asymptotically periodic.

The marked length spectrum (MLS) of a closed negatively curved manifold $(M, g)$ is known to determine the metric g under various circumstances. We show that, in these cases, (approximate) values of the MLS on a sufficiently large finite set approximately determine the metric. Our approach is to recover the hypotheses of our main theorems in Butt [Quantative marked length spectrum rigidity. Preprint, 2022], namely, multiplicative closeness of the MLS functions on the entire set of closed geodesics of M. We use mainly dynamical tools and arguments, but take great care to show that the constants involved depend only on concrete geometric information about the given Riemannian metrics, such as the dimension, diameter and sectional curvature bounds.

We prove that among the set of pairs ($C^2$-diffeomorphism, $C^1$-potential), there exists a $C^1$-open and dense subset such that either the Lagrange spectrum is finite and the dynamics is a Morse–Smale diffeomorphism or the Lagrange spectrum has positive Hausdorff dimension and the system has positive topological entropy. We also prove that such dichotomy does not hold for typical systems when replacing the Lagrange by the Markov spectrum.

We define a new class of plane billiards – the “pensive billiard” – in which the billiard ball travels along the boundary for some distance depending on the incidence angle before reflecting, while preserving the billiard rule of equality of the angles of incidence and reflection. This generalizes so-called “puck billiards” proposed by M. Bialy, as well as a “vortex billiard,” that is, the motion of a point vortex dipole in two-dimensional hydrodynamics on domains with boundary. We prove the variational origin and invariance of a symplectic structure for pensive billiards, as well as study their properties including conditions for a twist map, the existence of periodic orbits, etc. We also demonstrate the appearance of both the golden and silver ratios in the corresponding hydrodynamical vortex setting. Finally, we introduce and describe basic properties of pensive outer billiards.

Mathematical billiards is much like the real game: a point mass, representing the ball, rolls in a straight line on a (perfectly friction-less) table, striking the sides according to the law of reflection. A billiard trajectory is then completely characterized by the number of elastic collisions. The rules of mathematical billiards may be simple, but the possible behaviours of billiard trajectories are endless. In fact, several fundamental theory questions in mathematics can be recast as billiards problems. A billiard trajectory is called a periodic orbit if the number of distinct collisions in the trajectory is finite. We show that periodic orbits on such billiard tables cannot have an odd number of distinct collisions. We classify all possible equivalence classes of periodic orbits on square and rectangular tables. We also present a connection between the number of different equivalence classes and Euler’s totient function, which for any positive integer N, counts how many positive integers smaller than N share no common divisor with N other than $1$. We explore how to construct periodic orbits with a prescribed (even) number of distinct collisions and investigate properties of inadmissible (singular) trajectories, which are trajectories that eventually terminate at a vertex (a table corner).

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.

In this paper, we consider a class of affine Anosov mappings with a quasi-periodic forcing and show that there is a unique positive integer m, which only depends on the system, such that the exponential growth rate of the number of invariant tori of degree m is equal to the topological entropy.

The global C0 linearization theorem on Banach spaces was first proposed by Pugh [26], but it requires that the nonlinear term is globally bounded. In the present paper, we discuss global linearization of semilinear autonomous ordinary differential equations on Banach spaces assuming that the linear part is hyperbolic (including contraction as a particular case) and that the nonlinear term is only Lipschitz with a sufficiently small Lipschitz constant. To overcome the difficulties arising in this problem, in this paper, we rely on a splitting lemma to decouple the hyperbolic system into a contractive system along the stable manifold and an expansive system along the unstable manifold. We then construct a transformation to linearize a contractive/expansive system, which is defined by the crossing time with respect to the unit sphere. To demonstrate the strength of our result, we apply our results to a nonlinear Duffing oscillator without external excitation.

The concept of parity due to Fitzpatrick, Pejsachowicz and Rabier is a central tool in the abstract bifurcation theory of nonlinear Fredholm operators. In this paper, we relate the parity to the Evans function, which is widely used in the stability analysis for traveling wave solutions to evolutionary PDEs.

In contrast, we use Evans function as a flexible tool yielding general sufficient condition for local bifurcations of specific bounded entire solutions to (Carathéodory) differential equations. These bifurcations are intrinsically nonautonomous in the sense that the assumptions implying them cannot be fulfilled for autonomous or periodic temporal forcings. In addition, we demonstrate that Evans functions are strictly related to the dichotomy spectrum and hyperbolicity, which play a crucial role in studying the existence of bounded solutions on the whole real line and therefore the recent field of nonautonomous bifurcation theory. Finally, by means of non-trivial examples we illustrate the applicability of our methods.

We prove that in the space of $C^r$ maps $(r=2,\ldots ,\infty ,\omega )$ of a smooth manifold of dimension at least 4, there exist open regions where maps with infinitely many corank-2 homoclinic tangencies of all orders are dense. The result is applied to show the existence of maps with universal two-dimensional dynamics, that is, maps whose iterations approximate the dynamics of every map of a two-dimensional disk with an arbitrarily good accuracy. We show that maps with universal two-dimensional dynamics are $C^r$-generic in the regions under consideration.

We consider twist diffeomorphisms of the torus, $f:\mathrm {T^2\rightarrow T^2,}$ and their vertical rotation intervals, $\rho _V(\widehat {f})=[\rho _V^{-},\rho _V^{+}],$ where $\widehat {f}$ is a lift of f to the vertical annulus or cylinder. We show that $C^r$-generically, for any $r\geq 1$, both extremes of the rotation interval are rational and locally constant under $C^0$-perturbations of the map. Moreover, when f is area-preserving, $C^r$-generically, $\rho _V^{-}<\rho _V^{+}$. Also, for any twist map f, $\widehat {f}$ a lift of f to the cylinder, if $\rho _V^{-}<\rho _V^{+}=p/q$, then there are two possibilities: either $\widehat {f}^q(\bullet )-(0,p)$ maps a simple essential loop into the connected component of its complement which is below the loop, or it satisfies the curve intersection property. In the first case, $\rho _V^{+} \leq p/q$ in a $C^0$-neighborhood of $f,$ and in the second case, we show that $\rho _V^{+}(\widehat {f}+(0,t))>p/q$ for all $t>0$ (that is, the rotation interval is ready to grow). Finally, in the $C^r$-generic case, assuming that $\rho _V^{-}<\rho _V^{+}=p/q,$ we present some consequences of the existence of the free loop for $\widehat {f}^q(\bullet )-(0,p)$, related to the description and shape of the attractor–repeller pair that exists in the annulus. The case of a $C^r$-generic transitive twist diffeomorphism (if such a thing exists) is also investigated.

We consider local escape rates and hitting time statistics for unimodal interval maps of Misiurewicz–Thurston type. We prove that for any point z in the interval, there is a local escape rate and hitting time statistics that is one of three types. While it is key that we cover all points z, the particular interest here is when z is periodic and in the postcritical orbit that yields the third part of the trichotomy. We also prove generalized asymptotic escape rates of the form first shown by Bruin, Demers and Todd.

We establish some interactions between uniformly recurrent subgroups (URSs) of a group G and cosets topologies $\tau _{\mathcal {N}}$ on G associated to a family $\mathcal {N}$ of normal subgroups of G. We show that when $\mathcal {N}$ consists of finite index subgroups of G, there is a natural closure operation $\mathcal {H} \mapsto \mathrm {cl}_{\mathcal {N}}(\mathcal {H})$ that associates to a URS $\mathcal {H}$ another URS $\mathrm {cl}_{\mathcal {N}}(\mathcal {H})$, called the $\tau _{\mathcal {N}}$-closure of $\mathcal {H}$. We give a characterization of the URSs $\mathcal {H}$ that are $\tau _{\mathcal {N}}$-closed in terms of stabilizer URSs. This has consequences on arbitrary URSs when G belongs to the class of groups for which every faithful minimal profinite action is topologically free. We also consider the largest amenable URS $\mathcal {A}_G$ and prove that for certain coset topologies on G, almost all subgroups $H \in \mathcal {A}_G$ have the same closure. For groups in which amenability is detected by a set of laws (a property that is variant of the Tits alternative), we deduce a criterion for $\mathcal {A}_G$ to be a singleton based on residual properties of G.

Non-autonomous self-similar sets are a family of compact sets which are, in some sense, highly homogeneous in space but highly inhomogeneous in scale. The main purpose of this paper is to clarify various regularity properties and separation conditions relevant for the fine local scaling properties of these sets. A simple application of our results is a precise formula for the Assouad dimension of non-autonomous self-similar sets in $\mathbb{R}^d$ satisfying a certain “bounded neighbourhood” condition, which generalises earlier work of Li–Li–Miao–Xi and Olson–Robinson–Sharples. We also see that the bounded neighbourhood assumption is, in few different senses, as general as possible.

Let M be a smooth closed oriented surface. Gaussian thermostats on M correspond to the geodesic flows arising from metric connections, including those with non-zero torsion. These flows may not preserve any absolutely continuous measure. We prove that if two Gaussian thermostats on M with negative thermostat curvature are related by a smooth orbit equivalence isotopic to the identity, then the two background metrics are conformally equivalent via a smooth diffeomorphism of M isotopic to the identity. We also give a relationship between the thermostat forms themselves. Finally, we prove the same result for Anosov magnetic flows.

Quorum sensing governs bacterial communication, playing a crucial role in regulating population behaviour. We propose a mathematical model that uncovers chaotic dynamics within quorum sensing networks, highlighting challenges to predictability. The model explores interactions between autoinducers and two bacterial subtypes, revealing oscillatory dynamics in both a constant autoinducer submodel and the full three-component model. In the latter case, we find that the complicated dynamics can be explained by the presence of homoclinic Shilnikov bifurcations. We employ a combination of normal-form analysis and numerical continuation methods to analyse the system.

We study the planar FitzHugh–Nagumo system with an attracting periodic orbit that surrounds a repelling focus equilibrium. When the associated oscillation of the system is perturbed, in a given direction and with a given amplitude, there will generally be a change in phase of the perturbed oscillation with respect to the unperturbed one. This is recorded by the phase transition curve (PTC), which relates the old phase (along the periodic orbit) to the new phase (after perturbation). We take a geometric point of view and consider the phase-resetting surface comprising all PTCs as a function of the perturbation amplitude. This surface has a singularity when the perturbation maps a point on the periodic orbit exactly onto the repelling focus, which is the only point that does not return to stable oscillation. We also consider the PTC as a function of the direction of the perturbation and present how the corresponding phase-resetting surface changes with increasing perturbation amplitude. In this way, we provide a complete geometric interpretation of how the PTC changes for any perturbation direction. Unlike other examples discussed in the literature so far, the FitzHugh–Nagumo system is a generic example and, hence, representative for planar vector fields.

Using a perturbation result established by Galatolo and Lucena [Spectral gap and quantitative statistical stability for systems with contracting fibers and Lorenz-like maps. Discrete Contin. Dyn. Syst. 40(3) (2020), 1309–1360], we obtain quantitative estimates on the continuity of the invariant densities and entropies of the physical measures for some families of piecewise expanding maps. We apply these results to a family of two-dimensional tent maps.

We study the problem of conjugating a diffeomorphism of the interval to (positive) powers of itself. Although this is always possible for homeomorphisms, the smooth setting is rather interesting. Besides the obvious obstruction given by hyperbolic fixed points, several other aspects need to be considered. As concrete results we show that, in class C1, if we restrict to the (closed) subset of diffeomorphisms having only parabolic fixed points, the set of diffeomorphisms that are conjugate to their powers is dense, but its complement is generic. In higher regularity, however, the complementary set contains an open and dense set. The text is complemented with several remarks and results concerning distortion elements of the group of diffeomorphisms of the interval in several regularities.