Inverting the Furstenberg correspondence (Q445209)

Furstenberg's correspondence principle, allowing statements in combinatorial number theory to be translated into statements in ergodic theory -- most notably Szemerédi's theorem [\textit{H. Furstenberg}, J. Anal. Math. 31, 204--256 (1977; Zbl 0347.28016)] -- associates a shift-invariant probability measure on \(\{0,1\}^{\mathbb N}\) that encodes combinatorial information about infinitely many of any given collection \((A_n)\) of sets with \(A_n\subset\{1,\dots,n\}\) for all \(n\). Here it is shown that any shift-invariant measure on \(\{0,1\}^{\mathbb N}\) arises in this way (it is straighforward to see that any ergodic measure does). The proof gives an explicit construction of a sequence of finite combinatorial approximations to any given measure with some uniformity in the rate of approximation and exploits specification properties of the shift. Using the explicit bounds, it is deduced that given any computable shift-invariant measure, there is a computable element of \(\{0,1\}^{\mathbb N}\) that is generic for that measure. The correspondence principle also holds for actions of amenable groups, and the inverse result that all invariant measures arise is shown in that setting also.