On the Vere-Jones classification and existence of maximal measures for countable topological Markov chains. (Q1880048)

The notion of local entropy is extended to the setting of countable Markov shifts, and it is shown that a transitive countable Markov shift admits a maximal measure whenever its local entropy is less than its global entropy. In addition, it is shown that a transient countable state graph has an extension to a graph of equal entropy which is either null- or positively recurrent. This develops the work of \textit{I. A. Salama} [Symbolic dynamics and its applications, Proc. AMS Conf. in honor of R. L. Adler, New Haven/CT (USA) 1991, Contemp. Math. 135, 349--360 (1992; Zbl 0801.54032)] on the classification of graphs by \textit{D. Vere-Jones} [Q. J. Math., Oxf. II. Ser. 13, 7--28 (1962; Zbl 0104.11805)].