Many results of the Fatou–Julia iteration theory of rational functions extend to uniformly quasiregular maps in higher dimensions. We obtain results of this type for certain classes of quasiregular maps which are not uniformly quasiregular.

Consider an irrational rotation of a unit circle and a real continuous function. A point is declared ‘maximizing’ if the growth of the ergodic sums at this point is maximal up to an additive constant. In the case of two-sided ergodic sums, the existence of a maximizing point for a continuous function implies that it is the coboundary of a continuous function. In contrast, we build, for the ‘usual’ one-sided ergodic sums, examples in Hölder or smooth classes, indicating that all kinds of behaviour of the function with respect to the dynamical system are possible. We also show that generic continuous functions are without maximizing points, not only for rotations, but also for the transformation 2x mod 1. For this latter transformation, it is known that any Hölder continuous function has a maximizing point.

We study the number of visits to balls Br(x), up to time t/μ(Br(x)), for a class of non-uniformly hyperbolic dynamical systems, where μ is the Sinai–Ruelle–Bowen measure. Outside a set of ‘bad’ centers x, we prove that this number is approximately Poissonnian with a controlled error term. In particular, when r→0, we get convergence to the Poisson law for a set of centers of μ-measure one. Our theorem applies for instance to the Hénon attractor and, more generally, to systems modelled by a Young tower whose return-time function has an exponential tail and with one-dimensional unstable manifolds. Along the way, we prove an abstract Poisson approximation result of independent interest.

Given a transformation T of a standard measure space (X,μ), let ℳ(T) denote the set of spectral multiplicities of the Koopman operator UT defined in by UTf:=f∘T. In this survey paper we discuss which subsets of are realizable as ℳ(T) for various T: ergodic, weakly mixing, mixing, Gaussian, Poisson, ergodic infinite measure-preserving, etc. The corresponding constructions are considered in detail. Generalizations to actions of Abelian locally compact second countable groups are also discussed.

An ∞-step nilsystem is an inverse limit of minimal nilsystems. In this article, it is shown that a minimal distal system is an ∞-step nilsystem if and only if it has no non-trivial pairs with arbitrarily long finite IP-independence sets. Moreover, it is proved that any minimal system without non-trivial pairs with arbitrarily long finite IP-independence sets is an almost one-to-one extension of its maximal ∞-step nilfactor, and each invariant ergodic measure is isomorphic (in the measurable sense) to the Haar measure on some ∞-step nilsystem. The question if such a system is uniquely ergodic remains open. In addition, the topological complexity of an ∞-step nilsystem is computed, showing that it is polynomial for each non-trivial open cover.

Given a factor code between sofic shifts X and Y, there is a family of decompositions of the original code into factor codes such that the entropies of the intermediate subshifts arising from the decompositions are dense in the interval from the entropy of Y to that of X. Furthermore, if X is of finite type, we can choose those intermediate subshifts as shifts of finite type. In the second part of the paper, given an embedding from a shift space to an irreducible sofic shift, we characterize the set of the entropies of the intermediate subshifts arising from the decompositions of the given embedding into embeddings.

Keller [Stochastic stability in some chaotic dynamical systems. Monatsh. Math.94(4) (1982), 313–333] introduced families of W-shaped maps that can have a great variety of behaviors. As a family approaches a limit W map, he observed behavior that was either described by a probability density function (PDF) or by a singular point measure. Based on this, Keller conjectured that instability of the absolutely continuous invariant measure (ACIM) can result only from the existence of small invariant neighborhoods of the fixed critical point of the limit map. In this paper, we show that the conjecture is not true. We construct a very simple family of W-maps with ACIMs supported on the whole interval, whose limiting dynamical behavior is captured by a singular measure. Key to the analysis is the use of a general formula for invariant densities of piecewise linear and expanding maps [P. Góra. Invariant densities for piecewise linear maps of interval. Ergod. Th. & Dynam. Sys. 29(5) (2009), 1549–1583].

I provide a proof of the existence of absolutely continuous invariant measures (and study their statistical properties) for multidimensional piecewise expanding systems with not necessarily bounded derivative or distortion. The proof uses basic properties of multidimensional BV functions (the space of functions of bounded variations).

We prove that for every finitely generated group Γ, at least one of the following holds: (1) Γ has fixed price; (2) each of its Cayley graphs G has infinitely many infinite clusters for some Bernoulli percolation on G.

For a class of ℤ2 Markov Random Fields (MRFs) μ, we show that the sequence of successive differences of entropies of induced MRFs on strips of height n converges exponentially fast (in n) to the entropy of μ. These strip entropies can be computed explicitly when μ is a Gibbs state given by a nearest-neighbor interaction on a strongly irreducible nearest-neighbor ℤ2 shift of finite type X. We state this result in terms of approximations to the (topological) pressures of certain functions on such an X, and we show that these pressures are computable if the values taken on by the functions are computable. Finally, we show that our results apply to the hard core model and Ising model for certain parameter values of the corresponding interactions, as well as to the topological entropy of certain nearest-neighbor ℤ2 shifts of finite type, generalizing a result in [R. Pavlov. Approximating the hard square entropy constant with probabilistic methods. Ann. Probab. to appear].

The two-dimensional homogeneous Euclidean algorithm is the central motivation for the definition of the classical multidimensional continued fraction algorithms, such as Jacobi–Perron, Poincaré, Brun and Selmer algorithms. The Rauzy induction, a generalization of the Euclidean algorithm, is a key tool in the study of interval exchange transformations. Both maps are known to be dissipative and ergodic with respect to Lebesgue measure. Here we prove that they are exact.

We characterize Maass cusp forms for any cofinite Hecke triangle group as 1-eigenfunctions of appropriate regularity of a transfer operator family. This transfer operator family is associated to a certain symbolic dynamics for the geodesic flow on the orbifold arising as the orbit space of the action of the Hecke triangle group on the hyperbolic plane. Moreover, we show that the Selberg zeta function is the Fredholm determinant of the transfer operator family associated to an acceleration of this symbolic dynamics.

We show that the escaping sets and the Julia sets of bounded-type transcendental entire functions of order ρ become ‘smaller’ as ρ→∞. More precisely, their Hausdorff measures are infinite with respect to the gauge function hγ(t)=t2g(1/t)γ, where g is the inverse of a linearizer of some exponential map and γ≥(log ρ(f)+K1)/c, but for ρ large enough, there exists a function fρ of bounded type with order ρ such that the Hausdorff measures of the escaping set and the Julia set of fρ with respect to hγ′ are zero whenever γ′ ≤(log ρ−K2)/c.

The theory of Hubbard trees provides an effective classification of nonlinear postcritically finite polynomial maps in ℂ. This note extends the classification to maps from a finite union of copies of ℂ to itself. Holomorphic proper maps on a finite union of copies of ℂ which are postcritically finite and nowhere linear can be characterized by a ‘forest’ made up of one tree for each copy of the set of complex numbers.