We introduce the notions of returns and well-aligned sets for closed relations on compact metric spaces and then use them to obtain non-trivial sufficient conditions for such a relation to have non-zero entropy. In addition, we give a characterization of finite relations with non-zero entropy in terms of Li–Yorke and DC2 chaos.

For a $C^1$ non-conformal repeller, this paper proves that there exists an ergodic measure of full Carathéodory singular dimension. For an average conformal hyperbolic set of a $C^1$ diffeomorphism, this paper constructs a Borel probability measure (with support strictly inside the repeller) of full Hausdorff dimension. If the average conformal hyperbolic set is of a $C^{1+\alpha }$ diffeomorphism, this paper shows that there exists an ergodic measure of maximal dimension.

We consider orthogonally invariant probability measures on $\operatorname {\mathrm {GL}}_n(\mathbb {R})$ and compare the mean of the logs of the moduli of eigenvalues of the matrices with the Lyapunov exponents of random matrix products independently drawn with respect to the measure. We give a lower bound for the former in terms of the latter. The results are motivated by Dedieu and Shub [On random and mean exponents for unitarily invariant probability measures on $\operatorname {\mathrm {GL}}_n(\mathbb {C})$. Astérisque 287 (2003), xvii, 1–18]. A novel feature of our treatment is the use of the theory of spherical polynomials in the proof of our main result.

The purpose of this study is two-fold. First, the Hausdorff dimension formula of the multidimensional multiplicative subshift (MMS) in $\mathbb {N}^d$ is presented. This extends the earlier work of Kenyon et al [Hausdorff dimension for fractals invariant under multiplicative integers. Ergod. Th. & Dynam. Sys. 32(5) (2012), 1567–1584] from $\mathbb {N}$ to $\mathbb {N}^d$. In addition, the preceding work of the Minkowski dimension of the MMS in $\mathbb {N}^d$ is applied to show that their Hausdorff dimension is strictly less than the Minkowski dimension. Second, the same technique allows us to investigate the multifractal analysis of multiple ergodic average in $\mathbb {N}^d$. Precisely, we extend the result of Fan et al, [Multifractal analysis of some multiple ergodic averages. Adv. Math. 295 (2016), 271–333] of the multifractal analysis of multiple ergodic average from $\mathbb {N}$ to $\mathbb {N}^d$.

We study the measurable dynamical properties of the interval map generated by the model-case erasing substitution $\rho $, defined by

$$ \begin{align*} \rho(00)=\text{empty word},\quad \rho(01)=1,\quad \rho(10)=0,\quad \rho(11)=01. \end{align*} $$

Based on previous work of the authors, to any S-adic development of a subshift X a ‘directive sequence’ of commutative diagrams is associated, which consists at every level $n \geq 0$ of the measure cone and the letter frequency cone of the level subshift $X_n$ associated canonically to the given S-adic development. The issuing rich picture enables one to deduce results about X with unexpected directness. For instance, we exhibit a large class of minimal subshifts with entropy zero that all have infinitely many ergodic probability measures. As a side result, we also exhibit, for any integer $d \geq 2$, an S-adic development of a minimal, aperiodic, uniquely ergodic subshift X, where all level alphabets $\mathcal A_n$ have cardinality $d,$ while none of the $d-2$ bottom level morphisms is recognizable in its level subshift $X_n \subseteq \mathcal A_n^{\mathbb {Z}}$.

In this paper, we prove the continuity of iteration operators $\mathcal {J}_n$ on the space of all continuous self-maps of a locally compact Hausdorff space X and generally discuss dynamical behaviors of them. We characterize their fixed points and periodic points for $X=\mathbb {R}$ and the unit circle $S^1$. Then we indicate that all orbits of $\mathcal {J}_n$ are bounded; however, we prove that for $X=\mathbb {R}$ and $S^1$, every fixed point of $\mathcal {J}_n$ which is non-constant and equals the identity on its range is not Lyapunov stable. The boundedness and the instability exhibit the complexity of the system, but we show that the complicated behavior is not Devaney chaotic. We give a sufficient condition to classify the systems generated by iteration operators up to topological conjugacy.

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.

Every Thurston map $f\colon S^2\rightarrow S^2$ on a $2$-sphere $S^2$ induces a pull-back operation on Jordan curves $\alpha \subset S^2\smallsetminus {P_f}$, where ${P_f}$ is the postcritical set of f. Here the isotopy class $[f^{-1}(\alpha )]$ (relative to ${P_f}$) only depends on the isotopy class $[\alpha ]$. We study this operation for Thurston maps with four postcritical points. In this case, a Thurston obstruction for the map f can be seen as a fixed point of the pull-back operation. We show that if a Thurston map f with a hyperbolic orbifold and four postcritical points has a Thurston obstruction, then one can ‘blow up’ suitable arcs in the underlying $2$-sphere and construct a new Thurston map $\widehat f$ for which this obstruction is eliminated. We prove that no other obstruction arises and so $\widehat f$ is realized by a rational map. In particular, this allows for the combinatorial construction of a large class of rational Thurston maps with four postcritical points. We also study the dynamics of the pull-back operation under iteration. We exhibit a subclass of our rational Thurston maps with four postcritical points for which we can give positive answer to the global curve attractor problem.

We define the topological multiplicity of an invertible topological system $(X,T)$ as the minimal number k of real continuous functions $f_1,\ldots , f_k$ such that the functions $f_i\circ T^n$, $n\in {\mathbb {Z}}$, $1\leq i\leq k,$ span a dense linear vector space in the space of real continuous functions on X endowed with the supremum norm. We study some properties of topological systems with finite multiplicity. After giving some examples, we investigate the multiplicity of subshifts with linear growth complexity.

Let $({\mathbb X}, T)$ be a subshift of finite type equipped with the Gibbs measure $\nu $ and let f be a real-valued Hölder continuous function on ${\mathbb X}$ such that $\nu (f) = 0$. Consider the Birkhoff sums $S_n f = \sum _{k=0}^{n-1} f \circ T^{k}$, $n\geqslant 1$. For any $t \in {\mathbb R}$, denote by $\tau _t^f$ the first time when the sum $t+ S_n f$ leaves the positive half-line for some $n\geqslant 1$. By analogy with the case of random walks with independent and identically distributed increments, we study the asymptotic as $ n\to \infty $ of the probabilities $ \nu (x\in {\mathbb X}: \tau _t^f(x)>n) $ and $ {\nu (x\in {\mathbb X}: \tau _t^f(x)=n) }$. We also establish integral and local-type limit theorems for the sum $t+ S_n f(x)$ conditioned on the set $\{ x \in {\mathbb X}: \tau _t^f(x)>n \}.$

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 show that for every countable group, any sequence of approximate homomorphisms with values in permutations can be realized as the restriction of a sofic approximation of an orbit equivalence relation. Moreover, this orbit equivalence relation is uniquely determined by the invariant random subgroup of the approximate homomorphisms. We record applications of this result to recover various known stability and conjugacy characterizations for almost homomorphisms of amenable groups.

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.

We show that there is a distortion element in a finitely generated subgroup G of the automorphism group of the full shift, namely an element of infinite order whose word norm grows polylogarithmically. As a corollary, we obtain a lower bound on the entropy dimension of any subshift containing a copy of G, and that a sofic shift’s automorphism group contains a distortion element if and only if the sofic shift is uncountable. We obtain also that groups of Turing machines and the higher-dimensional Brin–Thompson groups $mV$ admit distortion elements; in particular, $2V$ (unlike V) does not admit a proper action on a CAT$(0)$ cube complex. In each case, the distortion element roughly corresponds to the SMART machine of Cassaigne, Ollinger, and Torres-Avilés [A small minimal aperiodic reversible Turing machine. J. Comput. System Sci. 84 (2017), 288–301].

We give a $C^1$-perturbation technique for ejecting an a priori given finite set of periodic points preserving a given finite set of homo/heteroclinic intersections from a chain recurrence class of a periodic point. The technique is first stated under a simpler setting called a Markov iterated function system, a two-dimensional iterated function system in which the compositions are chosen in a Markovian way. Then we apply the result to the setting of three-dimensional partially hyperbolic diffeomorphisms.

Let G be a group and let V be an algebraic variety over an algebraically closed field K. Let A denote the set of K-points of V. We introduce algebraic sofic subshifts ${\Sigma \subset A^G}$ and study endomorphisms $\tau \colon \Sigma \to \Sigma $. We generalize several results for dynamical invariant sets and nilpotency of $\tau $ that are well known for finite alphabet cellular automata. Under mild assumptions, we prove that $\tau $ is nilpotent if and only if its limit set, that is, the intersection of the images of its iterates, is a singleton. If moreover G is infinite, finitely generated and $\Sigma $ is topologically mixing, we show that $\tau $ is nilpotent if and only if its limit set consists of periodic configurations and has a finite set of alphabet values.

We obtain the following embedding theorem for symbolic dynamical systems. Let G be a countable amenable group with the comparison property. Let X be a strongly aperiodic subshift over G. Let Y be a strongly irreducible shift of finite type over G that has no global period, meaning that the shift action is faithful on Y. If the topological entropy of X is strictly less than that of Y and Y contains at least one factor of X, then X embeds into Y. This result partially extends the classical result of Krieger when $G = \mathbb {Z}$ and the results of Lightwood when $G = \mathbb {Z}^d$ for $d \geq 2$. The proof relies on recent developments in the theory of tilings and quasi-tilings of amenable groups.

We show that, under finitely many ergodicity assumptions, any multicorrelation sequence defined by invertible measure-preserving $\mathbb {Z}^d$-actions with multivariable integer polynomial iterates is the sum of a nilsequence and a nullsequence, extending a recent result of the second author. To this end, we develop a new seminorm bound estimate for multiple averages by improving the results in a previous work of the first, third, and fourth authors. We also use this approach to obtain new criteria for joint ergodicity of multiple averages with multivariable polynomial iterates on ${\mathbb Z}^{d}$-systems.

We say that $S\subseteq \mathbb Z$ is a set of k-recurrence if for every measure-preserving transformation T of a probability measure space $(X,\mu )$ and every $A\subseteq X$ with $\mu (A)>0$, there is an $n\in S$ such that $\mu (A\cap T^{-n} A\cap T^{-2n}\cap \cdots \cap T^{-kn}A)>0$. A set of $1$-recurrence is called a set of measurable recurrence. Answering a question of Frantzikinakis, Lesigne, and Wierdl [Sets of k-recurrence but not (k+1)-recurrence. Ann. Inst. Fourier (Grenoble) 56(4) (2006), 839–849], we construct a set of $2$-recurrence S with the property that $\{n^2:n\in S\}$ is not a set of measurable recurrence.