Katok’s special representation theorem states that any free ergodic measure- preserving $\mathbb {R}^{d}$-flow can be realized as a special flow over a $\mathbb {Z}^{d}$-action. It provides a multidimensional generalization of the ‘flow under a function’ construction. We prove the analog of Katok’s theorem in the framework of Borel dynamics and show that, likewise, all free Borel $\mathbb {R}^{d}$-flows emerge from $\mathbb {Z}^{d}$-actions through the special flow construction using bi-Lipschitz cocycles.

Cheng and Newhouse (Ergod. Th. & Dynam. Sys. 25 (2005), 1091–1113) proved a variational principle for topological preimage entropy $h_{\mathrm {pre}}(f)$:

$$ \begin{align*} h_{\mathrm{pre}}(f)=\sup_{\mu\in\mathcal{M}(X,f)}h_{\mathrm{pre},\mu}(f). \end{align*} $$

Unfortunately, we show in this note that this variational principle is not true.

For a post-critically finite branched covering of the sphere that is a subdivision map of a finite subdivision rule, we define non-expanding spines which determine the existence of a Levy cycle in a non-exhaustive semi-decidable algorithm. Especially when a finite subdivision rule has polynomial growth of edge subdivisions, the algorithm terminates very quickly, and the existence of a Levy cycle is equivalent to the existence of a Thurston obstruction. To show the equivalence between Levy and Thurston obstructions, we generalize the arcs intersecting obstruction theorem by Pilgrim and Tan [Combining rational maps and controlling obstructions. Ergod. Th. & Dynam. Sys. 18(1) (1998), 221–245] to a graph intersecting obstruction theorem. As a corollary, we prove that for a pair of post-critically finite polynomials, if at least one polynomial has core entropy zero, then their mating has a Levy cycle if and only if the mating has a Thurston obstruction.

We give an example of a path-wise connected open set of $C^{\infty }$ partially hyperbolic endomorphisms on the $2$-torus, on which the (unique) Sinai–Ruelle–Bowen (SRB) measure exists for each system and varies smoothly depending on the system, while the sign of its central Lyapunov exponent changes.

For integers a and $b\geq 2$, let $T_a$ and $T_b$ be multiplication by a and b on $\mathbb {T}=\mathbb {R}/\mathbb {Z}$. The action on $\mathbb {T}$ by $T_a$ and $T_b$ is called $\times a,\times b$ action and it is known that, if a and b are multiplicatively independent, then the only $\times a,\times b$ invariant and ergodic measure with positive entropy of $T_a$ or $T_b$ is the Lebesgue measure. However, it is not known whether there exists a non-trivial $\times a,\times b$ invariant and ergodic measure. In this paper, we study the empirical measures of $x\in \mathbb {T}$ with respect to the $\times a,\times b$ action and show that the set of x such that the empirical measures of x do not converge to any measure has Hausdorff dimension one and the set of x such that the empirical measures can approach a non-trivial $\times a,\times b$ invariant measure has Hausdorff dimension zero. Furthermore, we obtain some equidistribution result about the $\times a,\times b$ orbit of x in the complement of a set of Hausdorff dimension zero.

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.

We characterize the stabilized automorphism group for odometers and Toeplitz subshifts, and then prove an invariance property of the stabilized automorphism group of these dynamical systems. Namely, we prove the isomorphism invariance of the primes for which the p-adic valuation of the period structure tends to infinity. A particular case of interest is that for torsion-free odometers, the stabilized automorphism group is a full isomorphism invariant.

We construct measures of maximal u-entropy for any partially hyperbolic diffeomorphism that factors over an Anosov torus automorphism and has mostly contracting center direction. The space of such measures has finite dimension, and its extreme points are ergodic measures with pairwise disjoint supports.

We show that a fibre-preserving self-diffeomorphism which has hyperbolic splittings along the fibres on a compact principal torus bundle is topologically conjugate to a map that is linear in the fibres.

The problem of non-integrability of the circular restricted three-body problem is very classical and important in the theory of dynamical systems. It was partially solved by Poincaré in the nineteenth century: he showed that there exists no real-analytic first integral which depends analytically on the mass ratio of the second body to the total and is functionally independent of the Hamiltonian. When the mass of the second body becomes zero, the restricted three-body problem reduces to the two-body Kepler problem. We prove the non-integrability of the restricted three-body problem both in the planar and spatial cases for any non-zero mass of the second body. Our basic tool of the proofs is a technique developed here for determining whether perturbations of integrable systems which may be non-Hamiltonian are not meromorphically integrable near resonant periodic orbits such that the first integrals and commutative vector fields also depend meromorphically on the perturbation parameter. The technique is based on generalized versions due to Ayoul and Zung of the Morales–Ramis and Morales–Ramis–Simó theories. We emphasize that our results are not just applications of the theories.

We show that the mode-locking region of the family of quasi-periodically forced Arnold circle maps with a topologically generic forcing function is dense. This gives a rigorous verification of certain numerical observations in [M. Ding, C. Grebogi and E. Ott. Evolution of attractors in quasiperiodically forced systems: from quasiperiodic to strange nonchaotic to chaotic. Phys. Rev. A 39(5) (1989), 2593–2598] for such forcing functions. More generally, under some general conditions on the base map, we show the density of the mode-locking property among dynamically forced maps (defined in [Z. Zhang. On topological genericity of the mode-locking phenomenon. Math. Ann. 376 (2020), 707–72]) equipped with a topology that is much stronger than the $C^0$ topology, compatible with smooth fiber maps. For quasi-periodic base maps, our result generalizes the main results in [A. Avila, J. Bochi and D. Damanik. Cantor spectrum for Schrödinger operators with potentials arising from generalized skew-shifts. Duke Math. J. 146 (2009), 253–280], [J. Wang, Q. Zhou and T. Jäger. Genericity of mode-locking for quasiperiodically forced circle maps. Adv. Math. 348 (2019), 353–377] and Zhang (2020).

In this paper, we consider random iterations of polynomial maps $z^{2} + c_{n}$, where $c_{n}$ are complex-valued independent random variables following the uniform distribution on the closed disk with center c and radius r. The aim of this paper is twofold. First, we study the (dis)connectedness of random Julia sets. Here, we reveal the relationships between the bifurcation radius and connectedness of random Julia sets. Second, we investigate the bifurcation of our random iterations and give quantitative estimates of bifurcation parameters. In particular, we prove that for the central parameter $c = -1$, almost every random Julia set is totally disconnected with much smaller radial parameters r than expected. We also introduce several open questions worth discussing.

We introduce a new method of constructing Birkhoff sections for pseudo-Anosov flows, which uses the connection between pseudo-Anosov flows and veering triangulations. This method allows for explicit constructions, as well as control over the Birkhoff section in terms of its Euler characteristic and the complexity of the boundary orbits. In particular, we show that any transitive pseudo-Anosov flow has a Birkhoff section with two boundary components.

We study the equidistribution of orbits of the form $b_1^{a_1(n)}\cdots b_k^{a_k(n)}\Gamma $ in a nilmanifold X, where the sequences $a_i(n)$ arise from smooth functions of polynomial growth belonging to a Hardy field. We show that under certain assumptions on the growth rates of the functions $a_1,\ldots ,a_k$, these orbits are equidistributed on some subnilmanifold of the space X. As an application of these results and in combination with the Host–Kra structure theorem for measure-preserving systems, as well as some recent seminorm estimates of the author for ergodic averages concerning Hardy field functions, we deduce a norm convergence result for multiple ergodic averages. Our method mainly relies on an equidistribution result of Green and Tao on finite segments of polynomial orbits on a nilmanifold [The quantitative behaviour of polynomial orbits on nilmanifolds. Ann. of Math. (2) 175 (2012), 465–540].

A probability measure-preserving action of a discrete amenable group G is said to be dominant if it is isomorphic to a generic extension of itself. Recently, it was shown that for $G = \mathbb {Z}$, an action is dominant if and only if it has positive entropy and that for any G, positive entropy implies dominance. In this paper, we show that the converse also holds for any G, that is, that zero entropy implies non-dominance.

While on the one hand, chaotic dynamical systems can be predicted for all time given exact knowledge of an initial state, they are also in many cases rapidly mixing, meaning that smooth probabilistic information (quantified by measures) on the system’s state has negligible value for predicting the long-term future. However, an understanding of the long-term predictive value of intermediate kinds of probabilistic information is necessary in various physical problems, and largely remains lacking. Of particular interest in data assimilation and linear response theory are the conditional measures of the Sinai–Ruelle–Bowen (SRB) measure on zero sets of general smooth functions of the phase space. In this paper we give rigorous and numerical evidence that such measures generically converge back under the dynamics to the full SRB measures, exponentially quickly. We call this property conditional mixing. While conditional mixing typically cannot be proven from standard transfer operator theory, we will prove that conditional mixing holds in a class of generalized baker’s maps, and demonstrate it numerically in some non-Markovian piecewise hyperbolic maps. Conditional mixing provides a natural limit on the effectiveness of long-term forecasting of chaotic systems via partial observations, and appears key to proving the existence of linear response outside the setting of smooth uniform hyperbolicity.

We prove a joint partial equidistribution result for common perpendiculars with given density on equidistributing equidistant hypersurfaces, towards a measure supported on truncated stable leaves. We recover a result of Marklof on the joint partial equidistribution of Farey fractions at a given density, and give several analogous arithmetic applications, including in Bruhat–Tits trees.