We begin by giving a new proof of the equivalence between the Liouville property and vanishing of the drift for symmetric random walks with finite first moments on finitely generated groups; a result which was first established by Kaimanovich-Vershik and Karlsson-Ledrappier. We then proceed to prove that the product of the Poisson boundary of any countable measured group $(G,μ)$ with any ergodic $(G,\checkμ)$-space is still ergodic, which in particular yields a new proof of weak mixing for the double Poisson boundary of $(G,μ)$ when $μ$ is symmetric. Finally, we characterize the failure of weak-mixing for an ergodic $(G,μ)$-space as the existence of a non-trivial measure-preserving isometric factor.
For any countable group with infinite conjugacy classes we construct a family of forests on the group. For each of them there is a random walk on the group with the property that its sample paths almost surely converge to the geometric boundary of the forest in a way that resembles the simple random walks on trees. It allows us to identify the Poisson boundary of the random walk with the boundary of the forest and to show that the group action on the Poisson boundary is free (which, in particular, implies non-triviality of the Poisson boundary). As a consequence we obtain that any countable gr…
Let $Γ$ be a countable discrete group, $H$ a lcsc totally disconnected group and $ρ: Γ\rightarrow H$ a homomorphism with dense image. We develop a general and explicit technique which provides, for every compact open subgroup $L < H$ and bi-$L$-invariant probability measure $θ$ on $H$, a Furstenberg discretization $τ$ of $θ$ such that the Poisson boundary of $(H,θ)$ is a $τ$-boundary. Among other things, this technique allows us to construct examples of finitely supported random walks on certain lamplighter groups and solvable Baumslag-Solitar groups, whose Poisson boundaries are prime, but no…
In this paper, we study dynamical properties as hypercyclicity, supercyclicity, frequent hypercyclicity and chaoticity for transition operators associated to countable irreductible Markov chains. As particular cases, we consider simple random walks on Z and Z+.
We consider a random walk on a second countable locally compact topological space endowed with an invariant Radon measure. We show that if the walk is symmetric and if every subset which is invariant by the walk has zero or infinite measure, then one has escape of mass for almost every starting point. We then apply this result in the context of homogeneous random walks on infinite volume spaces, and deduce a converse to Eskin-Margulis recurrence theorem.
We prove the following version of the Furstenberg-Zimmer structure theorem for stationary actions: Any stationary action of a locally compact second-countable group is a weakly mixing extension of a measure-preserving distal system.
We study invariant measures for random countable (finite or infinite) conformal iterated function systems (IFS) with arbitrary overlaps. We do not assume any type of separation condition. We prove, under a mild assumption of finite entropy, the dimensional exactness of the projections of invariant measures from the shift space, and we give a formula for their dimension, in the context of random infinite conformal iterated function systems with overlaps. There exist many differences between our case and the finite deterministic case studied in [7], and we introduce new methods specific to the i…
Let $Γ$ be a countable group acting on a geodesic Gromov-hyperbolic metric space $X$ and $μ$ a probability measure on $Γ$ whose support generates a non-elementary subsemigroup. Under the assumption that $μ$ has a finite exponential moment, we establish large deviations results for the distance and the translation length of a random walk with driving measure $μ$. From our results, we deduce a special case of a conjecture regarding large deviations of spectral radii of random matrix products.
We give conditions for the exactness of Rokhlin endomorphisms, apply these to random walks on locally compact, second countable topological groups and obtain that the action on the Poisson boundary of an adapted random walk on such a group is weakly mixing.
We study new relations between countable iterated function systems (IFS) with overlaps, Smale endomorphisms and random systems with complete connections. We prove that stationary measures for countable conformal IFS with overlaps and placedependent probabilities, are exact dimensional; moreover we determine their Hausdorff dimension. Next, we construct a family of fractals in the limit set of a countable IFS with overlaps S, and study the dimension for certain measures supported on these subfractals. In particular, we obtain families of measures on these subfractals which are related to the ge…
We answer the question of Aaronson about the relative complexity of Random Walks in Random Sceneries driven by either aperiodic two dimensional random walks, two-dimensional Simple Random walk, or by aperiodic random walks in the domain of attraction of the Cauchy distribution. A key step is proving that the range of the random walk satisfies the Fölner property almost surely.
By developing the entropy theory of random walks on equivalence relations and analyzing the asymptotic geometry of horospheric products we describe the Poisson boundary for random walks on random horospheric products of trees.
We deal with countable alphabet locally compact random subshifts of finite type (the latter merely meaning that the symbol space is generated by an incidence matrix) under the absence of Big Images Property and under the absence of uniform positivity of the transfer operator. We first establish the existence of random conformal measures along with good bounds for the iterates of the Perron-Frobenius operator. Then, using the technique of positive cones and proving a version of Bowen's type contraction (see \cite{Bow75}), we also establish a fairly complete thermodynamical formalism. This means…
Let G be a countable group which acts by isometries on a separable, but not necessarily proper, Gromov hyperbolic space X. We say the action of G is weakly hyperbolic if G contains two independent hyperbolic isometries. We show that a random walk on such G converges to the Gromov boundary almost surely. We apply the convergence result to show linear progress and linear growth of translation length, without any assumptions on the moments of the random walk. If the action is acylindrical, and the random walk has finite entropy and finite logarithmic moment, we show that the Gromov boundary with …
We introduce the concept of a deterministic walk in a deterministic environment on a countable state space (DWDE). For the deterministic walk in a fixed environment we establish properties analogous to those found in Markov chain theory, but for systems that do not in general have the Markov property. In particular, we establish hypotheses ensuring that a DWDE on $\Z$ is either recurrent or transient. An immediate consequence of this result is that a symmetric DWDE on $\Z$ is recurrent. Moreover, in the transient case, we show that the probability that the DWDE diverges to $+ \infty$ is either…
We determine the range of Furstenberg entropy for stationary ergodic actions of nonabelian free groups by an explicit construction involving random walks on random coset spaces.
We give a shorter proof of a theorem of G. Elek stating that two hyperfinite measure-preserving actions of a countable group on standard probability spaces are approximately conjugate if and only if they have the same invariant random subgroup. We then use this theorem to study model theory of hyperfinite measure-preserving actions of countable groups on probability spaces. This work generalizes the model-theoretic study of automorphisms of probability spaces conducted by I. Ben Yaacov, A. Berenstein, C. W. Henson and A. Usvyatsov.
Let $(X, \cal B, ν)$ be a probability space and let $Γ$ be a countable group of $ν$-preserving invertible maps of $X$ into itself. To a probability measure $μ$ on $Γ$ corresponds a random walk on $X$ with Markov operator $P$ given by $Pψ(x) = \sum_{a} ψ(ax) \, μ(a)$. A powerful tool is the spectral gap property for the operator $P$ when it holds. We consider various examples of ergodic $Γ$-actions and random walks and their extensions by a vector space: groups of automorphisms or affine transformations on compact nilmanifolds, random walk in random scenery on non amenable groups, translations …
We characterise amenability of a countable group in terms of the spectral radius of the Perron-Frobenius operator associated to a group extension of a countable Markov shift and a Hölder continuous potential. This extends a result of Day for random walks and recent work of Stadlbauer for dynamical systems. Moreover, we show that, if the potential satisfies a symmetry condition with respect to the group extension, then the logarithm of the spectral radius of the Perron-Frobenius operator is given by the Gurevic pressure of the potential.
Bond percolation on Cayley graphs provides examples of random graphs. Other examples arise from the dynamical study of proper repetitive subgraphs of Cayley graphs. In this paper we demonstrate that these two families have mutually singular laws as a corollary of a general lemma about countable Borel equivalence relations on first countable Hausdorff spaces.
