Local time and first return time for periodic semi-flows (Q502978)

The paper deals with an ergodic dynamical system \((A, \mu_A, T_A)\), preserving the probability measure \(\mu_A\), and equivalence relations on the set \(A \times \mathbb{Z}^d \times \mathbb R_+\) generated by \((x,q, t + r(x)) \sim (T_A(x), q + F(x), t).\) On the obtained set the semi-flow \((g_t)_{t \geq 0}\) is defined by translation along the third coordinate. Here \(r\) is a positive measurable function on \(A\) (the step time), and \(F\) is a \(\mathbb{Z}^d\)-valued measurable function on \(A\) for some integer \(d > 0\) (the step function). For any point \(x \in A\), the author defines the first return time in \(A_0 = A \times \{0\} \times \{0\}\) by \(\varphi(x) = \inf \{ t > 0: g_t(x, 0, 0) \in A_0\}\) and the local time at the origin by \(\xi_t(x) = \mathrm{Card} \{ s \in (0,t]: g_s(x,0,0) \in A_0\}\). Using spectral properties of a transfer operator of the system \((A, \mu_A, T_A)\) and perturbed transfer operators, the tail of the first return time and the distributional limit of the local time are studied. In the case of Gibbs-Markov maps under some additional assumptions, distributional asymptotics for the local time and an equivalent of the tail of the first return time are obtained.