In this paper we continue the study of automorphism groups of constant-length substitution shifts and also their topological factors. We show that, up to conjugacy, all roots of the identity map are letter-exchanging maps, and all other non-trivial automorphisms arise from twisted compressions of another constant-length substitution. We characterize the group of roots of the identity in both the measurable and topological setting. Finally, we show that any topological factor of a constant-length substitution shift is topologically conjugate to a constant-length substitution shift via a letter-to-letter code.

For every $m\in \mathbb {N}$ , we establish the equidistribution of the sequence of the averaged pullbacks of a Dirac measure at any given value in $\mathbb {C}\setminus \{0\}$ under the $m$ th order derivatives of the iterates of a polynomials $f\in \mathbb {C}[z]$ of degree $d>1$ towards the harmonic measure of the filled-in Julia set of f with pole at $\infty $ . We also establish non-archimedean and arithmetic counterparts using the potential theory on the Berkovich projective line and the adelic equidistribution theory over a number field k for a sequence of effective divisors on $\mathbb {P}^1(\overline {k})$ having small diagonals and small heights. We show a similar result on the equidistribution of the analytic sets where the derivative of each iterate of a Hénon-type polynomial automorphism of $\mathbb {C}^2$ has a given eigenvalue.

Let $X$ be a finite-dimensional connected compact abelian group equipped with the normalized Haar measure $\unicode[STIX]{x1D707}$. We obtain the following mean ergodic theorem over ‘thin’ phase sets. Fix $k\geq 1$ and, for every $n\geq 1$, let $A_{n}$ be a subset of $\mathbb{Z}^{k}\cap [-n,n]^{k}$. Assume that $(A_{n})_{n\geq 1}$ has $\unicode[STIX]{x1D714}(1/n)$ density in the sense that $\lim _{n\rightarrow \infty }(|A_{n}|/n^{k-1})=\infty$. Let $T_{1},\ldots ,T_{k}$ be ergodic automorphisms of $X$. We have

$$\begin{eqnarray}\frac{1}{|A_{n}|}\mathop{\sum }_{(n_{1},\ldots ,n_{k})\in A_{n}}f_{1}(T_{1}^{n_{1}}(x))\cdots f_{k}(T_{k}^{n_{k}}(x))\stackrel{L_{\unicode[STIX]{x1D707}}^{2}}{\longrightarrow }\int f_{1}\,d\unicode[STIX]{x1D707}\cdots \int f_{k}\,d\unicode[STIX]{x1D707},\end{eqnarray}$$

$f_{1},\ldots ,f_{k}\in L_{\unicode[STIX]{x1D707}}^{\infty }$

$T_{i}$

$A_{n}$

$[0,n]^{k}$

$n$

$A_{i}$

In this paper we consider the following nonlinear quasi-periodic system:

$$\begin{eqnarray}{\dot{x}}=(A+\unicode[STIX]{x1D716}P(t,\unicode[STIX]{x1D716}))x+\unicode[STIX]{x1D716}g(t,\unicode[STIX]{x1D716})+h(x,t,\unicode[STIX]{x1D716}),\quad x\in \mathbb{R}^{d},\end{eqnarray}$$

$A$

$d\times d$

$\unicode[STIX]{x1D716}g(t,\unicode[STIX]{x1D716})$

$\unicode[STIX]{x1D716}$

$h(x,t,\unicode[STIX]{x1D716})=O(x^{2})$

$x\rightarrow 0$

$P,g$

$h$

$t$

$\unicode[STIX]{x1D714}=(1,\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FC})$

$\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FC}$

$\unicode[STIX]{x1D716}$

$$\begin{eqnarray}{\dot{x}}=(A+B_{\ast }(t))x+h_{\ast }(x,t,\unicode[STIX]{x1D716}),\quad x\in \mathbb{R}^{d},\end{eqnarray}$$

$h_{\ast }(x,t,\unicode[STIX]{x1D716})=O(x^{2})~(x\rightarrow 0)$

$\unicode[STIX]{x1D714}=(1,\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FC})$

$\unicode[STIX]{x1D716}$

We study Smale skew product endomorphisms (introduced in Mihailescu and Urbański [Skew product Smale endomorphisms over countable shifts of finite type. Ergod. Th. & Dynam. Sys. doi: 10.1017/etds.2019.31. Published online June 2019]) now over countable graph-directed Markov systems, and we prove the exact dimensionality of conditional measures in fibers, and then the global exact dimensionality of the equilibrium measure itself. Our results apply to large classes of systems and have many applications. They apply, for instance, to natural extensions of graph-directed Markov systems. Another application is to skew products over parabolic systems. We also give applications in ergodic number theory, for example to the continued fraction expansion, and the backward fraction expansion. In the end we obtain a general formula for the Hausdorff (and pointwise) dimension of equilibrium measures with respect to the induced maps of natural extensions ${\mathcal{T}}_{\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FD}}$ of $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FD}$-maps $T_{\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FD}}$, for arbitrary $\unicode[STIX]{x1D6FD}>1$.

We study the independence density for finite families of finite tuples of sets for continuous actions of discrete groups on compact metrizable spaces. We use it to show that actions with positive naive entropy are Li–Yorke chaotic and untame. In particular, distal actions have zero naive entropy. This answers a question of Lewis Bowen.

A classical theorem of Hutchinson asserts that if an iterated function system acts on $\mathbb {R}^{d}$ by similitudes and satisfies the open set condition then it admits a unique self-similar measure with Hausdorff dimension equal to the dimension of the attractor. In the class of measures on the attractor, which arise as the projections of shift-invariant measures on the coding space, this self-similar measure is the unique measure of maximal dimension. In the context of affine iterated function systems it is known that there may be multiple shift-invariant measures of maximal dimension if the linear parts of the affinities share a common invariant subspace, or more generally if they preserve a finite union of proper subspaces of $\mathbb {R}^{d}$ . In this paper we give an example where multiple invariant measures of maximal dimension exist even though the linear parts of the affinities do not preserve a finite union of proper subspaces.

Let $(X,\unicode[STIX]{x1D70E})$ be a transitive sofic shift and let $\operatorname{Aut}(X)$ denote its automorphism group. We generalize a result of Frisch, Schlank, and Tamuz to show that any normal amenable subgroup of $\operatorname{Aut}(X)$ must be contained in the subgroup generated by the shift. We also show that the result does not extend to higher dimensions by giving an example of a two-dimensional mixing shift of finite type due to Hochman whose automorphism group is amenable and not generated by the shift maps.

In this paper we study the conformal measures of a normal subgroup of a cocompact Fuchsian group. In particular, we relate the extremal conformal measures to the eigenmeasures of a suitable Ruelle operator. Using Ancona’s theorem, adapted to the Ruelle operator setting, we show that if the group of deck transformations G is hyperbolic then the extremal conformal measures and the hyperbolic boundary of G coincide. We then interpret these results in terms of the asymptotic behavior of cutting sequences of geodesics on a regular cover of a compact hyperbolic surface.

Let $f$ be an $n$-dimensional holomorphic map defined in a neighborhood of the origin such that the origin is an isolated fixed point of all of its iterates, and let ${\mathcal{N}}_{M}(f)$ denote the number of periodic orbits of $f$ of period $M$ hidden at the origin. Gorbovickis gives an efficient way of computing ${\mathcal{N}}_{M}(f)$ for a large class of holomorphic maps. Inspired by Gorbovickis’ work, we establish a similar method for computing ${\mathcal{N}}_{M}(f)$ for a much larger class of holomorphic germs, in particular, having arbitrary Jordan matrices as their linear parts. Moreover, we also give another proof of the result of Gorbovickis [On multi-dimensional Fatou bifurcation. Bull. Sci. Math.138(3)(2014) 356–375] using our method.

Furstenberg [Disjointness in ergodic theory, minimal sets, and a problem in Diophantine approximation. Math. Syst. Theory1 (1967), 1–49] calculated the Hausdorff and Minkowski dimensions of one-sided subshifts in terms of topological entropy. We generalize this to $\mathbb{Z}^{2}$-subshifts. Our generalization involves mean dimension theory. We calculate the metric mean dimension and the mean Hausdorff dimension of $\mathbb{Z}^{2}$-subshifts with respect to a subaction of $\mathbb{Z}$. The resulting formula is quite analogous to Furstenberg’s theorem. We also calculate the rate distortion dimension of $\mathbb{Z}^{2}$-subshifts in terms of Kolmogorov–Sinai entropy.

We establish various new results on a problem proposed by Mahler [Some suggestions for further research. Bull. Aust. Math. Soc.29 (1984), 101–108] concerning rational approximation to fractal sets by rational numbers inside and outside the set in question. Some of them provide a natural continuation and improvement of recent results of Broderick, Fishman and Reich, and Fishman and Simmons. A key feature is that many of our new results apply to more general, multi-dimensional fractal sets and require only mild assumptions on the iterated function system. Moreover, we provide a non-trivial lower bound for the distance of a rational number $p/q$ outside the Cantor middle-third set $C$ to the set $C$, in terms of the denominator $q$. We further discuss patterns of rational numbers in fractal sets. We highlight two of them: firstly, an upper bound for the number of rational (algebraic) numbers in a fractal set up to a given height (and degree) for a wide class of fractal sets; and secondly, we find properties of the denominator structure of rational points in ‘missing-digit’ Cantor sets, generalizing claims of Nagy and Bloshchitsyn.

A measure on a locally compact group is said to be spread out if one of its convolution powers is not singular with respect to Haar measure. Using Markov chain theory, we conduct a detailed analysis of random walks on homogeneous spaces with spread out increment distribution. For finite volume spaces, we arrive at a complete picture of the asymptotics of the n-step distributions: they equidistribute towards Haar measure, often exponentially fast and locally uniformly in the starting position. In addition, many classical limit theorems are shown to hold. In the infinite volume case, we prove recurrence and a ratio limit theorem for symmetric spread out random walks on homogeneous spaces of at most quadratic growth. This settles one direction in a long-standing conjecture.

In this paper, we construct and study a semigroup associated to an action of a countable discrete group on a compact Hausdorff space that can be regarded as a higher dimensional generalization of the type semigroup. We study when this semigroup is almost unperforated. This leads to a new characterization of dynamical comparison and thus answers a question of Kerr and Schafhauser. In addition, this paper suggests a definition of comparison for dynamical systems in which neither the acting group is necessarily amenable nor the action is minimal.

We prove the Bernoulli property for determinantal point processes on $ \mathbb{R}^d $ with translation-invariant kernels. For the determinantal point processes on $ \mathbb{Z}^d $ with translation-invariant kernels, the Bernoulli property was proved by Lyons and Steif [Stationary determinantal processes: phase multiplicity, bernoullicity, and domination. Duke Math. J.120 (2003), 515–575] and Shirai and Takahashi [Random point fields associated with certain Fredholm determinants II: fermion shifts and their ergodic properties. Ann. Probab.31 (2003), 1533–1564]. We prove its continuum version. For this purpose, we also prove the Bernoulli property for the tree representations of the determinantal point processes.

Using an idea of Doug Lind, we give a lower bound for the Perron–Frobenius degree of a Perron number that is not totally real, in terms of the layout of its Galois conjugates in the complex plane. As an application, we prove that there are cubic Perron numbers whose Perron–Frobenius degrees are arbitrary large, a result known to Lind, McMullen and Thurston. A similar result is proved for bi-Perron numbers.