Given a countable amenable group G and 0 < L < 1, we give an elementary construction of a type-III:L Bernoulli group action. In the case where G is the integers, we show that our nonsingular Bernoulli shifts have independent and identically distributed factors.
Sinai proved that a nonatomic ergodic measure-preserving system has any Bernoulli shift of no greater entropy as a factor. Given a Bernoulli shift, we show that any other Bernoulli shift that is of strictly less entropy and is stochastically dominated by the original measure can be obtained as a monotone factor; that is, the factor map has the property that for each point in the domain, its image under the factor map is coordinatewise smaller than or equal to the original point.
We prove that if a free ergodic action of a countably infinite group has positive Rokhlin entropy (or, less generally, positive sofic entropy) then it factors onto all Bernoulli shifts of lesser or equal entropy. This extends to all countably infinite groups the well-known Sinai factor theorem from classical entropy theory.
We show the invalidity of finitary counterparts for three classification theorems: The preservation of being a Bernoulli shift through factors, Sinai's factor theorem, and the weak Pinsker property. We construct a finitary factor of an i.i.d. process which is not finitarily isomorphic to an i.i.d. process, showing that being finitarily Bernoulli is not preserved through finitary factors. This refutes a conjecture of M. Smorodinsky [11], which was first suggested by D. Rudolph [7]. We further show that any ergodic system is isomorphic to a process none of whose finitary factors are i.i.d. proce…
Probabilistic models of random walks in random sceneries give rise to examples of probability-preserving dynamical systems. A point in the state spaces consists of a walk-trajectory and a scenery, and its `motion' corresponds to shifting the time-origin. These models were proposed as natural examples of non-Bernoulli K-automorphisms by Adler, Ornstein and Weiss. This was proved in a famous analysis by Kalikow using Ornstein's Very Weak Bernoulli characterization of Bernoulli processes. Since then, various authors have generalized this construction to give other examples, including some smooth …
Previous work showed that every pair of nontrivial Bernoulli shifts over a fixed free group are orbit equivalent. In this paper, we prove that if $G_1,G_2$ are nonabelian free groups of finite rank then every nontrivial Bernoulli shift over $G_1$ is stably orbit equivalent to every nontrivial Bernoulli shift over $G_2$. This answers a question of S. Popa.
In a recent paper, K.Keller has given a characterization of the Kolmogorov-Sinai entropy of a discrete-time measure-preserving dynamical system on the base of an increasing sequence of special partitions. These partitions are constructed from order relations obtained via a given real-valued random vector, which can be interpreted as a collection of observables on the system and is assumed to separate points of it. In the present paper we relax the separation condition in order to generalize the given characterization of Kolmogorov-Sinai entropy, providing a statement on equivalence of sigma-al…
We study skew products where the base is a hyperbolic automorphism of $\mathbb{T}^2$, the fiber is a smooth area preserving flow on $\mathbb{T}^2$ with one fixed point (of high degeneracy) and the skewing function is a smooth non coboundary with non-zero integral. The fiber dynamics can be represented as a special flow over an irrational rotation and a roof function with one power singularity. We show that for a full measure set of rotations the corresponding skew product is $K$ and not Bernoulli. As a consequence we get a natural class of volume-preserving diffeomorphisms of $\mathbb{T}^4$ wh…
Sofic groups were defined implicitly by Gromov in [Gr99] and explicitly by Weiss in [We00]. All residually finite groups (and hence every linear group) is sofic. The purpose of this paper is to introduce, for every countable sofic group $G$, a family of measure-conjugacy invariants for measure-preserving $G$-actions on probability spaces. These invariants generalize Kolmogorov-Sinai entropy for actions of amenable groups. They are computed exactly for Bernoulli shifts over $G$, leading to a complete classification of Bernoulli systems up to measure-conjugacy for many groups including all count…
We give an elementary proof for Lewis Bowen's theorem saying that two Bernoulli actions of two free groups, each having arbitrary base probability spaces, are stably orbit equivalent. Our methods also show that for all compact groups K and every free product Γof n infinite amenable groups, the factor K^Γ/K of the Bernoulli action of Γon K^Γ by the diagonal action of K, is isomorphic with a Bernoulli action of Γ.
Namely, we prove that if $G$ is a countable, discrete group and $f\in M_{n}(\Z(G))$ is invertible on $\ell^{2}(G)^{\oplus n},$ but $f$ is not invertible in $M_{n}(\Z(G))$, then the measure-preserving action of $G$ on $X_{f}$ equipped with the Haar measure is weakly equivalent to a Bernoulli action. We shall in fact prove this weak equivalence in the case that $f$ has a "formal inverse in $\ell^{2}$".
Dan Rudolph showed that for an amenable group $Γ$, the generic measure-preserving action of $Γ$ on a Lebesgue space has zero entropy. Here this is extended to nonamenable groups. In fact, the proof shows that every action is a factor of a zero entropy action! This uses the strange phenomena that in the presence of nonamenability, entropy can increase under a factor map. The proof uses Seward's recent generalization of Sinai's Factor Theorem, the Gaboriau-Lyons result and my theorem that for every nonabelian free group, all Bernoulli shifts factor onto each other.
We take the first steps towards a better understanding of continuous orbit equivalence, i.e., topological orbit equivalence with continuous cocycles. First, we characterise continuous orbit equivalence in terms of isomorphisms of C*-crossed products preserving Cartan subalgebras. This is the topological analogue of the classical result by Singer and Feldman-Moore in the measurable setting. Secondly, we turn to continuous orbit equivalence rigidity, i.e., the question whether for certain classes of topological dynamical systems, continuous orbit equivalence implies conjugacy. We show that this …
Let $Γ$ be a countable group and denote by $\Cal S$ the equivalence relation induced by the Bernoulli action $Γ\curvearrowright [0,1]^Γ$, where $[0,1]^Γ$ is endowed with the product Lebesgue measure. We prove that for any subequivalence relation $\Cal R$ of $\Cal S$, there exists a partition $\{X_i\}_{i\geq 0}$ of $[0,1]^Γ$ with $\Cal R$-invariant measurable sets such that $\Cal R_{|X_0}$ is hyperfinite and $\Cal R_{|X_i}$ is strongly ergodic (hence ergodic), for every $i\geq 1$.
We show an invariance result for the L2-torsion of groups under uniform measure equivalence provided a measure-theoretic version of the determinant conjecture holds. The measure-theoretic determinant conjecture is discussed and, for instance, proved for Bernoulli actions of residually amenable groups.
We generalize a theorem of Chifan and Ioana by proving that for any, possibly type III, amenable von Neumann algebra $A_0$, any faithful normal state $φ_0$ and any discrete group $Γ$, the associated Bernoulli crossed product von Neumann algebra $M=(A_0,φ_0)^{\mathbin{\bar{\otimes}}Γ}\rtimes Γ$ is solid relatively to $\mathcal{L}(Γ)$. In particular, if $\mathcal{L}(Γ)$ is solid then $M$ is solid and if $Γ$ is non-amenable and $A_0 \neq \mathbb{C}$ then $M$ is a full prime factor. This gives many new examples of solid or prime type $\mathrm{III}$ factors. Following Chifan and Ioana, we also obta…
Let $G$ and $H$ be infinite finitely generated amenable groups. This paper studies two notions of equivalence between actions of such groups on standard Borel probability spaces. They are defined as stable orbit equivalences in which the associated cocycles satisfy certain tail bounds. In `integrable stable orbit equivalence', the length in $H$ of the cocycle-image of an element of $G$ must have finite integral over its domain (a subset of the $G$-system), and similarly for the reverse cocycle. In `bounded stable orbit equivalence', these functions must be essentially bounded in terms of the l…
Abért-Weiss have shown that the Bernoulli shift s of a countably infinite group Γis weakly contained in any free measure preserving action (mpa) b of Γ. We establish a strong version of this result, conjectured by Ioana, by showing that s \times b is weakly equivalent to b. This is generalized to non-free mpa's using random Bernoulli shifts. The result for free mpa's is used to show that isomorphism on the weak equivalence class of a free mpa does not admit classification by countable structures. This provides a negative answer to a question of Abért and Elek. We also answer a question of Kech…
The von Neumann-Day problem asks whether every non-amenable group contains a non-abelian free group. It was answered in the negative by Ol'shanskii in the 1980s. The measurable version (formulated by Gaboriau-Lyons) asks whether every non-amenable measured equivalence relation contains a non-amenable treeable subequivalence relation. This paper obtains a positive answer in the case of arbitrary Bernoulli shifts over a non-amenable group, extending work of Gaboriau-Lyons. The proof uses an approximation to the random interlacement process by random multistep of geometrically-killed random walk …
We prove that if two free p.m.p. $\mathbb{Z}$-actions are Shannon orbit equivalent then they have the same entropy. The argument also applies more generally to yield the same conclusion for free p.m.p. actions of finitely generated virtually Abelian groups. Together with the isomorphism theorems of Ornstein and Ornstein-Weiss and the entropy invariance results of Austin and Kerr-Li in the non-virtually-cyclic setting, this shows that two Bernoulli actions of any non-locally-finite countably infinite amenable group are Shannon orbit equivalent if and only if they are measure conjugate. We also …
We show that the class $\mathscr{B}$, of discrete groups which satisfy the conclusion of Popa's Cocycle Superrigidity Theorem for Bernoulli actions, is invariant under measure equivalence. We generalize this to the setting of discrete p.m.p. groupoids, and as a consequence we deduce that any nonamenable lattice in a product of two noncompact, locally compact second countable groups, must belong to $\mathscr{B}$. We also introduce a measure-conjugacy invariant called Weak Pinsker entropy and show that, if G is a group in the class $\mathscr{B}$, then Weak Pinsker entropy is an orbit-equivalence…
The following result is proven. Let $G_1 \cc^{T_1} (X_1,μ_1)$ and $G_2 \cc^{T_2} (X_2,μ_2)$ be orbit-equivalent, essentially free, probability measure preserving actions of countable groups $G_1$ and $G_2$. Let $H$ be any countable group. For $i=1,2$, let $Γ_i = G_i *H$ be the free product. Then the actions of $Γ_1$ and $Γ_2$ coinduced from $T_1$ and $T_2$ are orbit-equivalent. As an application, it is shown that if $Γ$ is a free group, then all nontrivial Bernoulli shifts over $Γ$ are orbit-equivalent.
The goals of this paper are twofold. First, we generalize the result of Gaboriau and Lyons [GL07] to the setting of von Neumann's problem for equivalence relations, proving that for any non-amenable ergodic probability measure preserving (pmp) equivalence relation $\mathcal{R}$, the Bernoulli extension over a non-atomic base space $(K, κ)$ contains the orbit equivalence relation of a free ergodic pmp action of $\mathbb{F}_2$. Moreover, we provide conditions which imply that this holds for any non-trivial probability space $K$. Second, we use this result to prove that any non-amenable unimodula…
We say that two free probability-measure-preserving actions of countable groups are Shannon orbit equivalent if there is an orbit equivalence between them whose associated cocycle partitions have finite Shannon entropy. We show that if the acting groups are sofic and each has a w-normal amenable subgroup which is neither locally finite nor virtually cyclic then Shannon orbit equivalence implies that the actions have the same maximum sofic entropy. This extends a result of Austin beyond the finitely generated amenable setting and has the consequence that two Bernoulli actions of a group with th…
Equationally compact subgroups of countable groups were introduced by Banaschewski. For all known cases the orbit closure of such a subgroup is a countable subset in the space of subgroups and has finite Cantor-Bendixson rank. We show that there exists a finitely generated group $Γ$ such that for any countable ordinal $α$ we have an equationally compact subgroup $H\subset Γ$ for which the Cantor-Bendixson rank of the orbit closure of $H$ equals to $α+2$. Then we give an explicite construction of continuum many equationally compact subgroups of $Γ$ such that the associated ergodic Bernoulli shi…
In this paper we study the dynamics of Bernoulli flows and their subflows over general countable groups from the symbolic and topological perspectives. We study free subflows (subflows in which every point has trivial stabilizer), minimal subflows, disjointness of subflows, the problem of classifying subflows up to topological conjugacy, and the differences in dynamical behavior between pairs of points which disagree on finitely many coordinates. We call a point hyper aperiodic if the closure of its orbit is a free subflow and we call it minimal if the closure of its orbit is a minimal subflow…