Ergodic theorems for the shift action and pointwise versions of the Abért-Weiss theorem

Measure-preserving transformations (28D05) Dynamical aspects of measure-preserving transformations (37A05) Algebraic ergodic theory, cocycles, orbit equivalence, ergodic equivalence relations (37A20) Ergodic theorems, spectral theory, Markov operators (37A30) Symbolic dynamics (37B10) Dynamics induced by group actions other than (mathbb{Z}) and (mathbb{R}), and (mathbb{C}) (37C85)

Abstract: Let

G a m m a

be a countably infinite group. A common theme in ergodic theory is to start with a probability measure-preserving (p.m.p.) action

G a m m a c u r v e a r r o w r i g h t (X, m u)

and a map

f i n L^{1} (X, m u)

, and to compare the global average

i n t f, m a t h r m d m u

of

f

to the pointwise averages

| D |^{- 1} s u m_{d e l t a i n D} f (d e l t a c d o t x)

, where

x i n X

and

D

is a nonempty finite subset of

G a m m a

. The basic hope is that, when

D

runs over a suitably chosen infinite sequence, these pointwise averages should converge to the global value for

m u

-almost all

x

. In this paper we prove several results that refine the above basic paradigm by uniformly controlling the averages over specific sets

D

rather than considering their limit as

| D | o i n f t y

. Our results include ergodic theorems for the Bernoulli shift action

G a m m a c u r v e a r r o w r i g h t ([0; 1]^{G} a m m a, l a m b d a^{G} a m m a)

and strengthenings of the theorem of Ab'ert and Weiss that the shift is weakly contained in every free p.m.p. action of

G a m m a

. In particular, we establish a purely Borel version of the Ab'ert--Weiss theorem for finitely generated groups of subexponential growth. The central role in our arguments is played by the recently introduced measurable versions of the Lov'asz Local Lemma, due to the current author and to Cs'oka, Grabowski, M'ath'e, Pikhurko, and Tyros.

Review text

Let \(\Gamma\) be a countably infinite group with identity element \(1\) and \(\alpha: \Gamma \curvearrowright(X, \mu)\) be a probability measure-preserving action. Given \(f \in L^{1}(X, \mu),\) the global average is \[ \mathbb{E}_{\mu} f:=\int_{X} f \mathrm{d} \mu, \] and the pointwise averages are \[ \mathbb{E}_{D} f(x):=\frac{1}{|D|} \sum_{\delta \in D} f(\delta \cdot x), \] where \(x \in X\) and \(D\) is a nonempty finite subset of \(\Gamma\). Theorem 2.1 gives a pointwise ergodic theorem for continuous maps \(f\) on the Bernoulli shift action \(\Gamma \curvearrowright\left([0 ; 1]^{\Gamma}, \lambda^{\Gamma}\right)\). Instead of considering the problem of when the limits of those two averages will meet as \(|D| \rightarrow \infty\), the author considers a sequence \(\left(D_{n}\right)_{n \in \mathbb{N}}\) of finite subsets of \(\Gamma\) such that \(\left|D_{n}\right| / \log n \rightarrow \infty .\) This result leads to the mean ergodic theorem for the shift, as a corollary. Theorem 2.1 follows by a concentration of measure inequality together with the Borel-Cantelli lemma. Note that the Lovász Local Lemma, a useful tool in probabilistic combinatorics, plays an important role in this paper. The author also reviews it and its measurable analogues in Section 6 and goes through one of its proofs in order to prove some results. Theorem 2.6 is a push-forward ergodic theorem for the shift. Based on the definition of residually finite and on this theorem, the author comes up with a new definition called approximately residually finite. As a strengthening of the theorem of \textit{M. Abért} and \textit{B. Weiss} [Ergodic Theory Dyn. Syst. 33, No. 2, 323--333 (2013; Zbl 1268.37006)], Theorem 2.11 gives a pointwise (Abért-Weiss) theorem. The last result, Theorem 2.14, is valid for uniformly subexponential actions. As the author mentions, it is a purely Borel version of the Abért-Weiss theorem for finitely generated groups of subexponential growth.

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