Chaotic actions of topological semigroups (Q2447248)

The authors propose a definition of chaos in the context of continuous actions of a topological semigroup \(S\): A subset \(T\subset S\) is called ``right syndetic'' if there is a compact set \(K\subset S\) such that \(K^{-1}T=KT=S\). Let \(\phi\) be an action of \(S\) on \(X\). For \(x\in X\) denote the stabilizer of \(\phi\) at \(x\) by \(S_x(\phi)\) and let \(S(\phi):=\bigcap_{x\in X}S_x(\phi)\). The action \(\phi\) is said to be periodic if \(S(\phi)\) is right syndetic in \(S\). A point \(x\in X\) is called periodic if \(S_x(\phi)\) is right syndetic, and strongly periodic if the action \(\phi_x\) of \(S\) on the orbit of \(x\) is periodic. Finally, \(\phi\) is called minimal if \(\phi(S,x)\) is dense in \(X\) for all \(x\in X\). Then \(\phi\) is said to be (strongly) chaotic if \(\phi\) is topologically transitive, the set of (strongly) periodic points is dense in \(X\), and \(\phi\) is not minimal. In case \(X\) is a Hausdorff uniform space, the authors show that a chaotic action must be sensitive to initial conditions, where the latter notion means that there is an entourage \(\Theta\) of \(X\) such that for every \(x\in X\) and open neighbourhood of \(x\) there are \(s\in S\) and \(y\in U\) such that \((\phi(s,x),\phi(s,y))\notin\Theta\).