We study the possible dynamical degrees of automorphisms of the affine space $\mathbb {A}^n$. In dimension $n=3$, we determine all dynamical degrees arising from the composition of an affine automorphism with a triangular one. This generalizes the easier case of shift-like automorphisms which can be studied in any dimension. We also prove that each weak Perron number is the dynamical degree of an affine-triangular automorphism of the affine space $\mathbb {A}^n$ for some n, and we give the best possible n for quadratic integers, which is either $3$ or $4$.

Under a suitable bunching condition, we establish that stable holonomies inside center-stable manifolds for $C^{1+\beta }$ diffeomorphisms are uniformly bi-Lipschitz and, in fact, $C^{1+\mathrm {H}\ddot{\rm o}\mathrm {lder}}$. This verifies the ergodicity of suitably center-bunched, essentially accessible, partially hyperbolic $C^{1+\beta }$ diffeomorphisms and verifies that the Ledrappier–Young entropy formula holds for $C^{1+\beta }$ diffeomorphisms of compact manifolds.

We investigate the local dynamics of antiholomorphic diffeomorphisms around a parabolic fixed point. We first give a normal form. Then we give a complete classification including a modulus space for antiholomorphic germs with a parabolic fixed point under analytic conjugacy. We then study some geometric applications: existence of real analytic invariant curves, existence of holomorphic and antiholomorphic roots of holomorphic and antiholomorphic parabolic germs, and commuting holomorphic and antiholomorphic parabolic germs.

In this paper we prove bounds for ergodic averages for nilflows on general higher-step nilmanifolds. Under Diophantine condition on the frequency of a toral projection of the flow, we prove that almost all orbits become equidistributed at polynomial speed. We analyze the rate of decay which is determined by the number of steps and structure of general nilpotent Lie algebras. Our main result follows from the technique of controlling scaling operators in irreducible representations and measure estimation on close return orbits on general nilmanifolds.

For any infinite transitive sofic shift X we construct a reversible cellular automaton (that is, an automorphism of the shift X) which breaks any given finite point of the subshift into a finite collection of gliders traveling into opposing directions. This shows in addition that every infinite transitive sofic shift has a reversible cellular automaton which is sensitive with respect to all directions. As another application we prove a finitary version of Ryan’s theorem: the automorphism group $\operatorname {\mathrm {Aut}}(X)$ contains a two-element subset whose centralizer consists only of shift maps. We also show that in the class of S-gap shifts these results do not extend beyond the sofic case.

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.

For an ascending HNN-extension $G*_{\psi }$ of a finitely generated abelian group G, we study how a synchronization between the geometry of the group and weak periodicity of a configuration in $\mathcal {A}^{G*_{\psi }}$ forces global constraints on it, as well as in subshifts containing it. A particular case are Baumslag–Solitar groups $\mathrm {BS}(1,N)$, $N\ge 2$, for which our results imply that a $\mathrm {BS}(1,N)$-subshift of finite type which contains a configuration with period $a^{N^\ell }\!, \ell \ge 0$, must contain a strongly periodic configuration with monochromatic $\mathbb {Z}$-sections. Then we study proper n-colorings, $n\ge 3$, of the (right) Cayley graph of $\mathrm {BS}(1,N)$, estimating the entropy of the associated subshift together with its mixing properties. We prove that $\mathrm {BS}(1,N)$ admits a frozen n-coloring if and only if $n=3$. We finally suggest generalizations of the latter results to n-colorings of ascending HNN-extensions of finitely generated abelian groups.

Let f be a Hénon–Sibony map, also known as a regular polynomial automorphism of $\mathbb {C}^k$, and let $\mu $ be the equilibrium measure of f. In this paper we prove that $\mu $ is exponentially mixing for plurisubharmonic observables.