Intrinsic stochasticity of dynamical systems (Q762124)

The concept of intrinsic stochasticity as proposed by I. Prigogine [cf. \textit{I. Prigogine}, \textit{F. Mayné}, \textit{C. George} and \textit{M. de Haan}, Proc. Math. Acad. Sci. USA 74, 4152-4156 (1977)] is approached here in the following way: Let \({\mathfrak A}\) be a \(W^*\)-algebra of dynamical observables with a trace \(\tau\) and let \({\mathbb{H}}=L^ 2({\mathfrak A},\tau)\). Let G be an ordered l.c.a. group with a positive cone \(G_+\) and let \(\alpha =\{\alpha_ g| g\in G\}\subset {\mathfrak L}({\mathbb{H}})\) be a unitary (strongly continuous) group. Then \(\alpha\) is said to have an intrinsic stochasticity with respect to a contractive semi-group \({\tilde \alpha}=\{{\tilde \alpha}_ g| g\in G_+\}\subset {\mathfrak L}({\mathbb{H}}\}\) provided there exists a densely defined invertible linear operator \(\Lambda\) such that \({\tilde \alpha}{}_ g\Lambda =\Lambda \alpha_ g\) for all g in \(G_+\) (on a dense domain). The main result is that in general \(\Lambda\) is strictly affiliated with \({\mathfrak L}({\mathbb{H}})\) but not with \({\mathfrak A}\); i.e. there is no finite set of (unbounded) operators \(A_ 1,B_ 1,...,A_ n,B_ n\) affiliated with \({\mathfrak A}\) such that \(\Lambda f=A_ 1fB_ 1+...+A_ nfB_ n\) for all \(f\in dom \Lambda \subset {\mathbb{H}}\). If in particular \(G={\mathbb{R}}\) and \(\alpha_ tA=e^{-itH}Ae^{-itH}\) where H is s.a.\(\geq 0\) then one can let in a canonical fashion \({\bar \alpha}{}_ t=e^{-tH}Ae^{- tH}\), \(t\geq 0\). This is illustrated by an example in connection with particle decay. Further examples from classical mechanics are: the group of shifts on \({\mathbb{R}}\) and the diffusion semi-group, the group of shifts in \({\mathbb{Z}}\) and the semi-group of random walks in \({\mathbb{Z}}\).