In this paper, we give necessary conditions for an $N$-expansive homeomorphism of a compact metric space to be nonchaotic in the Li–Yorke sense. As application we give a partial answer to a conjecture in [2].

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 show convergence of small eigenvalues for geometrically finite hyperbolic n-manifolds under strong limits. For a class of convergent convex sets in a strongly convergent sequence of Kleinian groups, we use the spectral gap of the limit manifold and the exponentially mixing property of the geodesic flow along the strongly convergent sequence to find asymptotically uniform counting formulas for the number of orthogeodesics between the convex sets. In particular, this provides asymptotically uniform counting formulas (with respect to length) for orthogeodesics between converging Margulis tubes, geodesic loops based at converging basepoints, and primitive closed geodesics.

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.

Reflection in a strictly convex bounded planar billiard acts on the space of oriented lines and preserves a standard area form. A caustic is a curve C whose tangent lines are reflected by the billiard to lines tangent to C. The famous Birkhoff conjecture states that the only strictly convex billiards with a foliation by closed caustics near the boundary are ellipses. By Lazutkin’s theorem, there always exists a Cantor family of closed caustics approaching the boundary. In the present paper, we deal with an open billiard, whose boundary is a strictly convex embedded (non-closed) curve $\gamma $. We prove that there exists a domain U adjacent to $\gamma $ from the convex side and a $C^\infty $-smooth foliation of $U\cup \gamma $ whose leaves are $\gamma $ and (non-closed) caustics of the billiard. This generalizes a previous result by Melrose on the existence of a germ of foliation as above. We show that there exists a continuum of above foliations by caustics whose germs at each point in $\gamma $ are pairwise different. We prove a more general version of this statement for $\gamma $ being an (immersed) arc. It also applies to a billiard bounded by a closed strictly convex curve $\gamma $ and yields infinitely many ‘immersed’ foliations by immersed caustics. For the proof of the above results, we state and prove their analogue for a special class of area-preserving maps generalizing billiard reflections: the so-called $C^{\infty }$-lifted strongly billiard-like maps. We also prove a series of results on conjugacy of billiard maps near the boundary for open curves of the above type.

For smooth random dynamical systems we consider the quenched linear and higher-order response of equivariant physical measures to perturbations of the random dynamics. We show that the spectral perturbation theory of Gouëzel, Keller and Liverani [28, 33], which has been applied to deterministic systems with great success, may be adapted to study random systems that possess good mixing properties. As a consequence, we obtain general linear and higher-order response results, as well as the differentiability of the variance in quenched central limit theorems (CLTs), for random dynamical systems (RDSs) that we then apply to random Anosov diffeomorphisms and random U(1) extensions of expanding maps. We emphasize that our results apply to random dynamical systems over a general ergodic base map, and are obtained without resorting to infinite-dimensional multiplicative ergodic theory.

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.

In this paper, we consider the convergence rate with respect to Wasserstein distance in the invariance principle for deterministic non-uniformly hyperbolic systems. Our results apply to uniformly hyperbolic systems and large classes of non-uniformly hyperbolic systems including intermittent maps, Viana maps, unimodal maps and others. Furthermore, as a non-trivial application to the homogenization problem, we investigate the Wasserstein convergence rate of a fast–slow discrete deterministic system to a stochastic differential equation.

We develop a geometric method to establish the existence and uniqueness of equilibrium states associated to some Hölder potentials for center isometries (as are regular elements of Anosov actions), in particular, the entropy maximizing measure and the SRB measure. A characterization of equilibrium states in terms of their disintegrations along stable and unstable foliations is also given. Finally, we show that the resulting system is isomorphic to a Bernoulli scheme.

In this work, we explore the dynamical implications of a spectral sequence analysis of a filtered chain complex associated to a non-singular Morse–Smale (NMS) flow $\varphi $ on a closed orientable $3$ -manifold $M^3$ with no heteroclinic trajectories connecting saddle periodic orbits. We introduce the novel concepts of cancellations and reductions of pairs of periodic orbits based on Franks’ morsification and Smale’s cancellation theorems. The main goal is to establish an algebraic-dynamical correspondence between the unfolding of this spectral sequence associated to $\varphi $ and a family of flows obtained by cancelling and reducing pairs of periodic orbits of $\varphi $ on $M^3$ . This correspondence is achieved through a spectral sequence sweeping algorithm (SSSA), which determines the order in which these cancellations and reductions of periodic orbits occur, producing a family of NMS flows that reaches a core flow when the spectral sequence converges.

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.

We construct two new classes of topological dynamical systems; one is a factor of a one-sided shift of finite type while the second is a factor of the two-sided shift. The data are a finite graph which presents the shift of finite type, a second finite directed graph and a pair of embeddings of it into the first, satisfying certain conditions. The factor is then obtained from a simple idea based on binary expansion of real numbers. In both cases, we construct natural metrics on the factors and, in the second case, this makes the system a Smale space, in the sense of Ruelle. We compute various algebraic invariants for these systems, including the homology for Smale space developed by the author and the K-theory of various $C^{*}$ -algebras associated to them, in terms of the pair of original graphs.

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 a non-conformal repeller $\Lambda $ of a $C^{1+\alpha }$ map f preserving an ergodic measure $\mu $ of positive entropy, this paper shows that the Lyapunov dimension of $\mu $ can be approximated gradually by the Carathéodory singular dimension of a sequence of horseshoes. For a $C^{1+\alpha }$ diffeomorphism f preserving a hyperbolic ergodic measure $\mu $ of positive entropy, if $(f, \mu )$ has only two Lyapunov exponents $\unicode{x3bb} _u(\mu )>0>\unicode{x3bb} _s(\mu )$ , then the Hausdorff or lower box or upper box dimension of $\mu $ can be approximated by the corresponding dimension of the horseshoes $\{\Lambda _n\}$ . The same statement holds true if f is a $C^1$ diffeomorphism with a dominated Oseledet’s splitting with respect to $\mu $ .

In this paper, we address the issue of synchronization of coupled systems, introducing concepts of local and global synchronization for a class of systems that extend the model of coupled map lattices. A criterion for local synchronization is given; numerical experiments are exhibited to illustrate the criteria and also to raise some questions in the end of the text.

In the context of discrete nonautonomous dynamics, we prove that the homeomorphisms in the linearization theorem are $C^2$ diffeomorphisms. In contrast to other related works, our result does not involve non-resonance conditions or spectral gaps. Our approach is based on the interlacing of the properties of nonautonomous hyperbolicity of the linear part, and boundedness and Lipschitzness of the nonlinearities. Moreover, we propose a functional approach to find conditions for regularity of arbitrary degree.

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 extend Katok’s result on ‘the approximation of hyperbolic measures by horseshoes’ to Banach cocycles. More precisely, let f be a $C^r(r>1)$ diffeomorphism of a compact Riemannian manifold M, preserving an ergodic hyperbolic measure $\mu $ with positive entropy, and let $\mathcal {A}$ be a Hölder continuous cocycle of bounded linear operators acting on a Banach space $\mathfrak {X}$ . We prove that there is a sequence of horseshoes for f and dominated splittings for $\mathcal {A}$ on the horseshoes, such that not only the measure theoretic entropy of f but also the Lyapunov exponents of $\mathcal {A}$ with respect to $\mu $ can be approximated by the topological entropy of f and the Lyapunov exponents of $\mathcal {A}$ on the horseshoes, respectively. As an application, we show the continuity of sub-additive topological pressure for Banach cocycles.

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.

For typical cocycles over subshifts of finite type, we show that for any given orbit segment, we can construct a periodic orbit such that it shadows the given orbit segment and that the product of the cocycle along its orbit is a proximal linear map. Using this result, we show that suitable assumptions on the periodic orbits have consequences over the entire subshift.