Simple systems and their higher order self-joinings (Q1802736)

Combined reviews for. 1. ``Ergodic properties where order 4 implies infinite order'', by J. King (see above). 2. ``Simple systems and their higher order self joinings'', by E. Glasner, B. Host and D. Rudolph. The first of these two important papers uses joinings arguments to settle affirmatively an old question concerning Rényi mixing and also to show that for any rank 1 \(\mathbb{Z}^ d\) action (or in fact any action sufficiently close to rank one, for example covering number \(>\bigl.{1\over 2}\bigr)\), 4-fold mixing implies mixing of all orders. \textit{S. A. Kalikow} [Ergodic Theory Dyn. Syst. 4, 237-259 (1984; Zbl 0552.28016)] showed that for rank 1, 2-fold mixing implies 3-fold mixing, and thus the result here complements that of Kalikow and gives something new even for the case \(d=1\). These results are applications of the authors' ``Fundamental Lemma'' which is applied to show that a map \(T\) which is 4-fold simple is simple of all orders, with a corresponding result for minimal self joinings. Rényi used a Hilbert space argument to show that for a measure-preserving transformation \(T\) defined on a probability space \((X,{\mathcal B},\mu)\) \[ \forall A \in{\mathcal B};\;\mu(A \cap T^{-n}A) \to \mu(A)^ 2 \] implies that \(T\) is 2-fold mixing. The question of whether the obvious generalization of this result to \(M\)-fold mixing holds, is answered affirmatively using the fundamental lemma. In the second paper, using different methods, the authors are able to improve the simplicity result of King, in the following sense. They show that a weakly mixing 2-simple system with no nontrivial factors, and having absolutely continuous spectral type is simple of all orders. Furthermore, they show that a weakly mixing 3-simple system is simple of all orders. These results are consequences of the authors' study of the joining of a simple system with an ergodic system, and of the pairwise independent joinings of three systems, one of which is simple.