Special representations of \({\mathbb{Z}}^n\)-actions (Q1972715)

The author generalizes the Rokhlin-Halmos lemma to prove a result corresponding to the earlier generalization of Alpern, but for free \(\mathbb{Z}^n\)-actions. Alpern's theorem (for \(\mathbb{Z}\)-actions) says that given a relatively prime set \(\{h_i\}_{i\in I} \subset \mathbb{Z}^+\), \(i= 1,\dots, N\leq \omega\), and a probability distribution \(\{\alpha_i\}\), then for any aperiodic automorphism \(T\) on a Lebesgue probability space \((X,{\mathcal B},\mu)\), there is a representation \[ X= \bigcup_{i=1}^N \Biggl( \bigcup_{j=0}^{h_i-1} T^j B_i \Biggr), \] (disjointly) where \(\mu(B_i)= \alpha_i/h_i\). In the case where \(I= \{1,2\}\), there is an analogy between these results and \textit{B. Rudolph}'s two valued step coding for ergodic flows [Proc. Int. Conf. Dyn. Syst. Math. Phys., Rennes (1975)].