Ergodic theory and statistical mechanics (Q762635)

The description in the two following paragraphs of the contents of this book is adapted from the author's introduction. This book is a high level text on topological and measure theoretic dynamical systems, in particular the symbolic dynamical systems of statistical mechanics. Attention is focused on the amenability of the group of actions of a dynamical system, a property which the author (and others!) considers fundamental. After some mathematical preliminaries, an existence theorem for the ameaning filter of an amenable group is given, followed by proofs of various ergodic theorems, then comes a description of the entropy theory of measure-theoretic dynamical systems, and of the relationship between measure theoretic and topological dynamical systems. Finally, a proof is given of the equivalence of a countable amenable group to Z. A more detailed description of the contents is provided by the chapter and sub-chapter headings listed below: Chapter 1: Preliminary analysis, 1.1: Sublinear functions and the Hahn-Banach theorem, 1.2: Compact convex sets, 1.3: Radon measures, 1.4: Extremal points in compact convex sets. Chapter 2: Dynamical systems and amenable groups, 2.1: Dynamical systems, 2.2: The fixed point property and the ameaning filter, 2.3: Amenability and algebraic constructions. Chapter 3: Ergodic theorems, 3.1: Invariant linear functionals, 3.2: Invariant vectors and mean ergodic theorems, 3.3: Individual ergodic theorems, 3.4: The saddle ergodic theorem. Chapter 4: Entropy of abstract dynamical systems, 4.1: Equivalence of abstract dynamical systems, 4.2: Entropy of partitions, 4.3: Entropy of dynamical systems, 4.4: The almost subadditive ergodic theorem and the Shannon-McMillan theorem. Chapter 5: Entropy as a function and the variational principle, 5.1: Topological entropy, 5.2: Pressure of a continuous function and the variational principle, 5.3: Entropy as a function of the measure. Chapter 6: Statistical mechanics on a lattice, 6.1: Local specifications and Gibbs measures, 6.2: Cocycles and quasi-invariant measures, 6.4: Supermodular interactions. Chapter 7: Dynamical systems in statistical mechanics, 7.1: Invariant local specifications, 7.2: Invariant Gibbs measures and equilibrium measures, 7.3: Mixing properties, 7.4: Example: a theorem of Ruelle's. Chapter 8: Equivalence of countable amenable groups, 8.1: Tiling amenable groups, 8.2: Equivalence of countable groups, 8.3: Rokhlin's lemma and hyperfiniteness of countable amenable groups. (References are given at the end of each chapter.) Comments: This work is clearly intended for ``physical mathematicians'' rather than for mathematical physicists. Also, in spite of the description of the book as a text, it demands from its reader a great deal of mathematical sophistication and technique. True, there is an introductory chapter on mathematical preliminaries, but a reader who is not already thoroughly familiar with the topics covered there (e.g. the Hahn-Banach theorem!) and with other topics not covered there (e.g., topological groups) should, I think, postpone reading this book until he is [In fairness to the author, I should mention that I would almost always give the same advice to a prospective reader of a mathematical book with such preliminaries in an introductory chapter or an appendix.] But the qualified readers to whom this book is addressed would, I think, find it a clear and useful account of very interesting material.