Orbit equivalence of Cantor minimal systems: A survey and a new proof

We give a new proof of the classification, up to topological orbit equivalence, of minimal AF-equivalence relations and minimal actions of the group of integers on the Cantor set. This proof relies heavily on the structure of AF-equivalence relations and the theory of dimension groups; we give a short survey of these topics.     

Full groups of Cantor minimal systems

We associate different types of full groups to Cantor minimal systems. We show how these various groups (as abstract groups) are complete invariants for orbit equivalence, strong orbit equivalence and flip conjugacy, respectively. Furthermore, we introduce a group homomorphism, the socalled mod map, from the normalizers of the various full groups to the automorphism groups of the (ordered)K ⁰-groups, which are associated to the Cantor minimal systems. We show how this in turn is related to the automorphisms of the associatedC ^*-crossed products. Our results are analogues in the topological dynamical setting of results obtained by Dye, Connes-Krieger and Hamachi-Osikawa in measurable dynamics. Research supported in part by operating grants from NSERC (Canada). Research supported in part by the Norwegian Research Council for Science and Humanities.     

Topological realizations of families of ergodic automorphisms, multitowers and orbit equivalence

We study minimal topological realizations of families of ergodic measure preserving automorphisms (e.m.p.a.'s). Our main result is the following theorem. Theorem: Let {T_p:p∈I} be an arbitrary finite or countable collection of e.m.p.a.'s on nonatomic Lebesgue probability spaces (Y _p v _p ). Let S be a Cantor minimal system such that the cardinality of the set ε _S of all ergodic S-invariant Borel probability measures is at least the cardinality of I. Then for any collection {μ _p :pεI} of distinct measures from ε _S there is a Cantor minimal system S′ in the topological orbit equivalence class of S such that, as a measure preserving system, (S ¹,μ _p ) is isomorphic to T_p for every p∈I. Moreover, S′ can be chosen strongly orbit equivalent to S if and only if all finite topological factors of S are measure-theoretic factors of T_p for all p∈I. This result shows, in particular, that there are no restrictions at all for the topological realizations of countable families of e.m.p.a.'s in Cantor minimal systems. Namely, for any finite or countable collection {T ₁,T₂,…} of e.m.p.a.'s of nonatomic Lebesgue probability spaces, there is a Cantor minimal systemS, whose collection {μ1,μ2…} of ergodic Borel probability measures is in one-to-one correspondence with {T ₁,T₂,…}, and such that (S,μ _i ) is isomorphic toT _i for alli. Furthermore, since realizations are taking place within orbit equivalence classes of a given Cantor minimal system, our results generalize the strong orbit realization theorem and the orbit realization theorem of [18]. Those theorems are now special cases of our result where the collections {T _p}, {T _p }{μ _p } consist of just one element each. Research of I.K. was supported by NSF grant DMS 0140068.     

Orbit equivalence for Cantor minimal ℤ d -systems

We show that every minimal action of any finitely generated abelian group on the Cantor set is (topologically) orbit equivalent to an AF relation. As a consequence, this extends the classification up to orbit equivalence of minimal dynamical systems on the Cantor set to include AF relations and ? ^d -actions.     

A classification of minimal sets of torus homeomorphisms

We provide a classification of minimal sets of homeomorphisms of the two-torus, in terms of the structure of their complement. We show that this structure is exactly one of the following types: (1) a disjoint union of topological disks, or (2) a disjoint union of essential annuli and topological disks, or (3) a disjoint union of one doubly essential component and bounded topological disks. Moreover, in case (1) bounded disks are non-periodic and in case (2) all disks are non-periodic. This result provides a framework for more detailed investigations, and additional information on the torus homeomorphism allows to draw further conclusions. In the non-wandering case, the classification can be significantly strengthened and we obtain that a minimal set other than the whole torus is either a periodic orbit, or the orbit of a periodic circloid, or the extension of a Cantor set. Further special cases are given by torus homeomorphisms homotopic to an Anosov, in which types 1 and 2 cannot occur, and the same holds for homeomorphisms homotopic to the identity with a rotation set which has non-empty interior. If a non-wandering torus homeomorphism has a unique and totally irrational rotation vector, then any minimal set other than the whole torus has to be the extension of a Cantor set.     

The computational content of Walras’ existence theorem

In [Y. Tanaka, Undecidability of the Uzawa equivalence theorem and LLPO, Appl. Math. Comput. 201 (2008) 378-383] Yasuhito Tanaka showed that Walras’ existence theorem implies the nonconstructive lesser limited principle of omniscience (LLPO); it follows that Walras’ existence theorem does not admit a constructive proof. We give a constructive proof of an approximate version of Walras’ existence theorem from which the full theorem can be recovered with an application of LLPO. We then push Uzawa’s equivalence theorem to the level of approximate solutions, before considering economies with at most one equilibrium.     

Minimal dynamical system with givenD-function and topological entropy

TheD-function is a new topological invariant introduced by the author in [3] to classify the minimal dynamical system and to generalize Sharkovskii's theorem on the coexistence of periodic orbits. We show that theD-function and the topological entropy are independent.Translated from Ukrainskii Matematicheskii Zhurnal, Vol. 45, No. 2, pp. 287–292, February, 1993.     

A Simpler Proof of the Excluded Minor Theorem for Higher Surfaces

We give a simple proof of the fact (which follows from the Robertson–Seymour theory) that a graph which is minimal of genusgcannot contain a subdivision of a large grid. Combining this with the tree-width theorem and the quasi-wellordering of graphs of bounded tree-width in the Robertson–Seymour theory, we obtain a simpler proof of the generalized Kuratowski theorem for each fixed surface. The proof requires no previous knowledge of graph embeddings.     

A simple proof of Hwang's theorem for rectilinear Steiner minimal trees

We present a simple, direct proof of Hwang's characterization of rectilinear Steiner minimal trees [3]: LetS be a set of at least five terminals in the plane. If no rectilinear Steiner minimal tree forS has a terminal of degree two or more, there is a tree in which at most one of the Steiner points does not lie on a straight linel, and the tree edges incident to the Steiner points onl appear on alternate sides. This theorem has been found useful in proving other results for rectilinear Steiner minimal trees.     

Free continuous actions on zero-dimensional spaces

We show that every countably infinite group admits a free, continuous action on the Cantor set having an invariant probability measure. We also show that every countably infinite group admits a free, continuous action on a non-homogeneous compact metric space and the action is minimal (that is to say, every orbit is dense). In answer to a question posed by Giordano, Putnam and Skau, we establish that there is a continuous, minimal action of a countably infinite group on the Cantor set such that no free continuous action of any group gives rise to the same equivalence relation.     

A generalization of the Shapley–Ichiishi result

The Shapley–Ichiishi result states that a game is convex if and only if the convex hull of marginal vectors equals the core. In this paper, we generalize this result by distinguishing equivalence classes of balanced games that share the same core structure. We then associate a system of linear inequalities with each equivalence class, and we show that the system defines the class. Application of this general theorem to the class of convex games yields an alternative proof of the Shapley–Ichiishi result. Other applications range from computation of stable sets in non-cooperative game theory to determination of classes of TU games on which the core correspondence is additive (even linear). For the case of convex games we prove that the theorem provides the minimal defining system of linear inequalities. An example shows that this is not necessarily true for other equivalence classes of balanced games.     

A topological version of the Poincaré-Birkhoff theorem with two fixed points

The main result of this paper gives a topological property satisfied by any homeomorphism of the annulus \mathbb A = \mathbb S¹ ×[-1, 1]{\mathbb {A} = \mathbb {S}^1 \times [-1, 1]} isotopic to the identity and with at most one fixed point. This generalizes the classical Poincaré-Birkhoff theorem because this property certainly does not hold for an area preserving homeomorphism h of \mathbb A{\mathbb {A}} with the usual boundary twist condition. We also have two corollaries of this result. The first one shows in particular that the boundary twist assumption may be weakened by demanding that the homeomorphism h has a lift H to the strip [(\mathbbA)\tilde] = \mathbbR ×[-1, 1]{\tilde{\mathbb{A}} = \mathbb{R} \times [-1, 1]} possessing both a forward orbit unbounded on the right and a forward orbit unbounded on the left. As a second corollary we get a new proof of a version of the Conley–Zehnder theorem in \mathbb A{\mathbb {A}} : if a homeomorphism of \mathbb A{\mathbb {A}} isotopic to the identity preserves the area and has mean rotation zero, then it possesses two fixed points.     

An elementary proof of an equivalence theorem relevant in the theory of optimization

The authors give an elementary proof of an equivalence theorem of analysis which is often used in optimization theory. The theorem asserts that certain conditions are equivalent to weak convergence inL ₁. One is the Dunford-Pettis condition concerning absolute integrability. Two others are expressed in terms of Nagumo functions, and can be thought of as growth properties. The original proofs of the various parts of the theorem are scattered in different and specialized mathematical publications. The authors feel it useful to present here a straightforward proof of the various parts in terms of standard Lebesgue integration theory.     

Realisation of measured dynamics as uniquely ergodic minimal homeomorphisms on manifolds

We prove that the family of measured dynamical systems which can be realised as uniquely ergodic minimal homeomorphisms on a given manifold (of dimension at least two) is stable under measured extension. As a corollary, any ergodic system with an irrational eigenvalue is isomorphic to a uniquely ergodic minimal homeomorphism on the two-torus. The proof uses the following improvement of Weiss relative version of Jewett–Krieger theorem: any extension between two ergodic systems is isomorphic to a skew-product on Cantor sets.     

On the S-matrix conjecture

Motivated with a problem in spectroscopy, Sloane and Harwit conjectured in 1976 what is the minimal Frobenius norm of the inverse of a matrix having all entries from the interval [0,1]$[0,1]$. In 1987, Cheng proved their conjecture in the case of odd dimensions, while for even dimensions he obtained a slightly weaker lower bound for the norm. His proof is based on the Kiefer–Wolfowitz equivalence theorem from the approximate theory of optimal design. In this note we give a short and simple proof of his result.     

Topological regular variation: I. Slow variation

Motivated by the Category Embedding Theorem, as applied to convergent automorphisms (Bingham and Ostaszewski (in press) [11]), we unify and extend the multivariate regular variation literature by a reformulation in the language of topological dynamics. Here the natural setting are metric groups, seen as normed groups (mimicking normed vector spaces). We briefly study their properties as a preliminary to establishing that the Uniform Convergence Theorem (UCT) for Baire, group-valued slowly-varying functions has two natural metric generalizations linked by the natural duality between a homogenous space and its group of homeomorphisms. Each is derivable from the other by duality. One of these explicitly extends the (topological) group version of UCT due to Bajšanski and Karamata (1969) [4] from groups to flows on a group. A multiplicative representation of the flow derived in Ostaszewski (2010) [45] demonstrates equivalence of the flow with the earlier group formulation. In companion papers we extend the theory to regularly varying functions: we establish the calculus of regular variation in Bingham and Ostaszewski (2010) [13] and we extend to locally compact, σ-compact groups the fundamental theorems on characterization and representation (Bingham and Ostaszewski (2010) [14]). In Bingham and Ostaszewski (2009) [15], working with topological flows on homogeneous spaces, we identify an index of regular variation, which in a normed-vector space context may be specified using the Riesz representation theorem, and in a locally compact group setting may be connected with Haar measure.     

On the Geometry of Dual Pairs

The set of dual pairs of any norm v equivalent to a Hilbert norm is shown to be naturally homeomorphic to the sphere of the Hilbert space. The proof begins with a known result showing the representability of every vector as a sum of two orthogonal vectors, one coming from a cone and the other from its dual (a generalization of representation by orthogonal subspaces). The key theorem, showing that every non-zero vector has a positive multiple which is the sum of two v-dual vectors, follows from this and in turn provides the required homeomorphism. One consequence of this topological equivalence is the arc-connectedness of the numerical range determined by v.     

Herbrand's theorem revisited

We present recent results on the deepening connection between proof theory and formal language theory. To each first-order proof with prenex cuts of complexity at most Π_n/Σ_n, we associate a typed (non-deterministic) tree grammar of order n (equivalently, an order n recursion scheme) that abstracts the computation of Herbrand sets obtained through Gentzen-style cut elimination. Apart from offering a means to compute Herbrand expansions directly from proofs with cuts, these grammars provide a structural counterpart to Herbrand's theorem that opens the door to tackling a number of questions in proof theory such as proof equivalence, proof compression and proof complexity. (© 2016 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)