We study a discrete process on planar convex bodies in which, at each step, a body is replaced by a weighted Minkowski average of itself and its rotation by a fixed angle. Up to translation and uniform scaling, this produces a rigid averaging dynamical system. We give a complete classification of the limit shapes. If the angle is an irrational multiple of $2\pi $, the iterates converge to a disk. If the angle is rational, they converge to the average of finitely many rotated copies of the initial body. We also obtain sharp convergence rates. In the rational case, the decay is uniform and exponential with an explicit constant depending only on the weight and the denominator of the angle. For irrational angles, we prove quantitative rates under a mild number-theoretic condition that holds for almost every angle: low regularity inputs have polynomial decay up to a logarithmic factor, while real analytic inputs have stretched exponential decay. For angles with bounded continued fraction coefficients, we give matching lower bounds along subsequences. These results describe the global attractors of the dynamics and indicate the absence of chaotic behaviour.

Given any strong orbit equivalence class of minimal Cantor systems and any cardinal number that is finite, countable, or the continuum, we show that there exists a minimal subshift within the class whose number of asymptotic components is exactly the given cardinal. For finite or countable ones, we explicitly construct such examples using $\mathcal {S}$-adic subshifts. We obtain the uncountable case by showing that any topological dynamical system with at most countably many asymptotic components has zero topological entropy. We also construct systems that have arbitrarily high subexponential word complexity, but only one asymptotic component. We deduce that within any strong orbit equivalence class, there exists a minimal subshift whose automorphism group is isomorphic to $\mathbb {Z}$.

We define a family of discontinuous maps on the circle, called Bowen–Series-like maps, for geometric presentations of surface groups. The family has $2N$ parameters, where $2N$ is the number of generators of the presentation. We prove that all maps in the family have the same topological entropy, which coincides with the volume entropy of the group presentation. This approach allows a simple algorithmic computation of the volume entropy from the presentation only, using the Milnor–Thurston theory for one-dimensional maps.

For continuous self-maps of compact metric spaces, we explore the relationship among the shadowable points, sensitive points, and entropy points. Specifically, we show that (1) if the set of shadowable points is dense in the phase space, then any interior point of the set of sensitive points is an entropy point; and (2) if the topological entropy is zero, then the denseness of the set of shadowable points is equivalent to almost chain continuity. In addition, we present a counter-example to a question raised by Ye and Zhang regarding entropy points.

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.

We study scaled topological entropy, scaled measure entropy, and scaled local entropy in the context of amenable group actions. In particular, a variational principle is established.

Let $(X,\mathcal {B},\mu ,T)$ be a probability-preserving system with X compact and T a homeomorphism. We show that if every point in $X\times X$ is two-sided recurrent, then $h_{\mu }(T)=0$, resolving a problem of Benjamin Weiss, and that if $h_{\mu }(T)=\infty $, then every full-measure set in X contains mean-asymptotic pairs (that is, the associated process is not tight), resolving a problem of Ornstein and Weiss.

We prove that every homeomorphism of a compact manifold with dimension one has zero topological emergence, whereas in dimension greater than one the topological emergence of a $C^0-$generic homeomorphism is maximal, equal to the dimension of the manifold. We also show that the metric emergence of a continuous self-map on compact metric space has the intermediate value property.

We study shift spaces over a finite alphabet that can be approximated by mixing shifts of finite type in the sense of (pseudo)metrics connected to Ornstein’s $\bar {d}$ metric ($\bar {d}$-approachable shift spaces). The class of $\bar {d}$-approachable shifts can be considered as a topological analog of measure-theoretical Bernoulli systems. The notion of $\bar {d}$-approachability, together with a closely connected notion of $\bar {d}$-shadowing, was introduced by Konieczny, Kupsa, and Kwietniak [Ergod. Th. & Dynam. Sys. 43(3) (2023), 943–970]. These notions were developed with the aim of significantly generalizing specification properties. Indeed, many popular variants of the specification property, including the classic one and the almost/weak specification property, ensure $\bar {d}$-approachability and $\bar {d}$-shadowing. Here, we study further properties and connections between $\bar {d}$-shadowing and $\bar {d}$-approachability. We prove that $\bar {d}$-shadowing implies $\bar {d}$-stability (a notion recently introduced by Tim Austin). We show that for surjective shift spaces with the $\bar {d}$-shadowing property the Hausdorff pseudodistance ${\bar d}^{\mathrm {H}}$ between shift spaces induced by $\bar {d}$ is the same as the Hausdorff distance between their simplices of invariant measures with respect to the Hausdorff distance induced by Ornstein’s metric $\bar {d}$ between measures. We prove that without $\bar {d}$-shadowing this need not to be true (it is known that the former distance always bounds the latter). We provide examples illustrating these results, including minimal examples and proximal examples of shift spaces with the $\bar {d}$-shadowing property. The existence of such shift spaces was announced in the earlier paper mentioned above. It shows that $\bar {d}$-shadowing indeed generalizes the specification property.

Feng and Huang [Variational principle for weighted topological pressure. J. Math. Pures Appl. (9) 106 (2016), 411–452] introduced weighted topological entropy and pressure for factor maps between dynamical systems and established its variational principle. Tsukamoto [New approach to weighted topological entropy and pressure. Ergod. Th. & Dynam. Sys. 43 (2023), 1004–1034] redefined those invariants quite differently for the simplest case and showed via the variational principle that the two definitions coincide. We generalize Tsukamoto’s approach, redefine the weighted topological entropy and pressure for higher dimensions, and prove the variational principle. Our result allows for an elementary calculation of the Hausdorff dimension of affine-invariant sets such as self-affine sponges and certain sofic sets that reside in Euclidean space of arbitrary dimension.

For $\mathscr {B} \subseteq \mathbb {N} $, the $ \mathscr {B} $-free subshift $ X_{\eta } $ is the orbit closure of the characteristic function of the set of $ \mathscr {B} $-free integers. We show that many results about invariant measures and entropy, previously only known for the hereditary closure of $ X_{\eta } $, have their analogues for $ X_{\eta } $ as well. In particular, we settle in the affirmative a conjecture of Keller about a description of such measures [G. Keller. Generalized heredity in $\mathcal B$-free systems. Stoch. Dyn. 21(3) (2021), Paper No. 2140008]. A central assumption in our work is that $\eta ^{*} $ (the Toeplitz sequence that generates the unique minimal component of $ X_{\eta } $) is regular. From this, we obtain natural periodic approximations that we frequently use in our proofs to bound the elements in $ X_{\eta } $ from above and below.

We find sufficient conditions for bounded density shifts to have a unique measure of maximal entropy. We also prove that every measure of maximal entropy of a bounded density shift is fully supported. As a consequence of this, we obtain that bounded density shifts are surjunctive.

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.

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 $S_i$.

Let G be a countably infinite discrete amenable group. It should be noted that a G-system $(X,G)$ naturally induces a G-system $(\mathcal {M}(X),G)$, where $\mathcal {M}(X)$ denotes the space of Borel probability measures on the compact metric space X endowed with the weak*-topology. A factor map $\pi : (X,G)\to (Y,G)$ between two G-systems induces a factor map $\widetilde {\pi }:(\mathcal {M}(X),G)\to (\mathcal {M}(Y),G)$. It turns out that $\widetilde {\pi }$ is open if and only if $\pi $ is open. When Y is fully supported, it is shown that $\pi $ has relative uniformly positive entropy if and only if $\widetilde {\pi }$ has relative uniformly positive entropy.

In this paper, we address the problem of computing the topological entropy of a map $\psi : G \to G$, where G is a Lie group, given by some power $\psi (g) = g^k$, with k a positive integer. When G is abelian, $\psi $ is an endomorphism and its topological entropy is given by $h(\psi ) = \dim (T(G)) \log (k)$, where $T(G)$ is the maximal torus of G, as shown by Patrão [The topological entropy of endomorphisms of Lie groups. Israel J. Math. 234 (2019), 55–80]. However, when G is not abelian, $\psi $ is no longer an endomorphism and these previous results cannot be used. Still, $\psi $ has some interesting symmetries, for example, it commutes with the conjugations of G. In this paper, the structure theory of Lie groups is used to show that $h(\psi ) = \dim (T)\log (k)$, where T is a maximal torus of G, generalizing the formula in the abelian case. In particular, the topological entropy of powers on compact Lie groups with discrete center is always positive, in contrast to what happens to endomorphisms of such groups, which always have null entropy.

We prove an explicit characterization of the points in Thurston’s Master Teapot, which can be implemented algorithmically to test whether a point in $\mathbb {C}\times \mathbb {R}$ belongs to the complement of the Master Teapot. As an application, we show that the intersection of the Master Teapot with the unit cylinder is not symmetrical under reflection through the plane that is the product of the imaginary axis of $\mathbb {C}$ and $\mathbb {R}$.

We prove that any continuous function can be locally approximated at a fixed point $x_{0}$ by an uncountable family resistant to disruptions by the family of continuous functions for which $x_{0}$ is a fixed point. In that context, we also consider the property of quasicontinuity.

Let $k\geq 2$ and $(X_{i}, \mathcal {T}_{i}), i=1,\ldots ,k$, be $\mathbb {Z}^{d}$-actions topological dynamical systems with $\mathcal {T}_i:=\{T_i^{\textbf {g}}:X_i{\rightarrow } X_i\}_{\textbf {g}\in \mathbb {Z}^{d}}$, where $d\in \mathbb {N}$ and $f\in C(X_{1})$. Assume that for each $1\leq i\leq k-1$, $(X_{i+1}, \mathcal {T}_{i+1})$ is a factor of $(X_{i}, \mathcal {T}_{i})$. In this paper, we introduce the weighted topological pressure $P^{\textbf {a}}(\mathcal {T}_{1},f)$ and weighted measure-theoretic entropy $h_{\mu }^{\textbf {a}}(\mathcal {T}_{1})$ for $\mathbb {Z}^{d}$-actions, and establish a weighted variational principle as

$$ \begin{align*} P^{\textbf{a}}(\mathcal{T}_{1},f)=\sup\bigg\{h_{\mu}^{\textbf{a}}(\mathcal{T}_{1})+\int_{X_{1}}f\,d\mu:\mu\in\mathcal{M}(X_{1}, \mathcal{T}_{1})\bigg\}. \end{align*} $$

This result not only generalizes some well-known variational principles about topological pressure for compact or non-compact sets, but also improves the variational principle for weighted topological pressure in [16] from $\mathbb {Z}_{+}$-action topological dynamical systems to $\mathbb {Z}^{d}$-actions topological dynamical systems.

In this work, we study the entropies of subsystems of shifts of finite type (SFTs) and sofic shifts on countable amenable groups. We prove that for any countable amenable group G, if X is a G-SFT with positive topological entropy $h(X)> 0$, then the entropies of the SFT subsystems of X are dense in the interval $[0, h(X)]$. In fact, we prove a ‘relative’ version of the same result: if X is a G-SFT and $Y \subset X$ is a subshift such that $h(Y) < h(X)$, then the entropies of the SFTs Z for which $Y \subset Z \subset X$ are dense in $[h(Y), h(X)]$. We also establish analogous results for sofic G-shifts.