Tim Austin

This work studies certain notions of entropy that can be associated to (i) a representation of a separable, unital C*-algebra $\mathfrak{A}$ and (ii) an auxiliary random sequence $(\pi_n)_{n\ge 1}$ of finite-dimensional representations of…

Ergodic theory includes several notions of entropy for probability-preserving actions of countable groups. These include Kolmogorov--Sinai entropy based on F\o lner sequences for amenable groups, entropy defined using a random ordering of…

We construct an explicit algebraic example of a subshift of finite type over a group $\Gamma$ with an invariant Markov measure which has completely positive sofic entropy (with respect to `most' sofic approximations) and yet does not have a…

Let $S$ and $T$ be measure-preserving transformations of a probability space $(X,{\mathcal B},\mu)$. Let $f$ be a bounded measurable functions, and consider the integrals of the corresponding `double' ergodic averages:…

An ergodic dynamical system $\mathbf{X}$ is called dominant if it is isomorphic to a generic extension of itself. It was shown in an earlier paper by Glasner, Thouvenot and Weiss that Bernoulli systems with finite entropy are dominant. In…

Let $a < b$ be multiplicatively independent integers, both at least $2$. Let $A,B$ be closed subsets of $[0,1]$ that are forward invariant under multiplication by $a$, $b$ respectively, and let $C := A\times B$. An old conjecture of…

Total correlation (`TC') and dual total correlation (`DTC') are two classical ways to quantify the correlation among an $n$-tuple of random variables. They both reduce to mutual information when $n=2$. The first part of this paper sets up…

We construct an example of a finitely-generated amenable group that does not admit any coarse 1-Lipschitz embedding with positive compression exponent into L_p for any 1 \leq p < \infty, answering positively a question of Arzhantseva, Guba…

Let $K_1$, $\dots$, $K_n$ be bounded, complete, separable metric spaces. Let $\lambda_i$ be a Borel probability measure on $K_i$ for each $i$. Let $f:\prod_i K_i \to \mathbb{R}$ be a bounded and continuous potential function, and let…

In a recent paper (arXiv:1211.6372), Bergelson and Tao proved that if $G$ is a $D$-quasi-random group, and $x$,$g$ are drawn uniformly and independently from $G$, then the quadruple $(g,x,gx,xg)$ is roughly equidistributed in the subset of…

Let $G$ be a connected nilpotent Lie group. Given probability-preserving $G$-actions $(X_i,\Sigma_i,\mu_i,u_i)$, $i=0,1,...,k$, and also polynomial maps $\phi_i:\mathbb{R}\to G$, $i=1,...,k$, we consider the trajectory of a joining…

Let $G$ be a sofic group, and let $\Sigma = (\sigma_n)_{n\geq 1}$ be a sofic approximation to it. For a probability-preserving $G$-system, a variant of the sofic entropy relative to $\Sigma$ has recently been defined in terms of sequences…

Consider a statistical physical model on the $d$-regular infinite tree $T_{d}$ described by a set of interactions $\Phi$. Let $\{G_{n}\}$ be a sequence of finite graphs with vertex sets $V_n$ that locally converge to $T_{d}$. From $\Phi$…

Let $(X,\mu)$ be a standard probability space. An automorphism $T$ of $(X,\mu)$ has the weak Pinsker property if for every $\varepsilon > 0$ it has a splitting into a direct product of a Bernoulli shift and an automorphism of entropy less…

If G is a countable discrete group acting linearly on a finite-dimensional vector space over any topological field, then the groups of coboundaries are closed for the product topology in all degrees, and hence the cohomology is reduced in…

Let $G$ and $H$ be infinite finitely generated amenable groups. This paper studies two notions of equivalence between actions of such groups on standard Borel probability spaces. They are defined as stable orbit equivalences in which the…

Let $G$ be a countable discrete sofic group. We define a concept of uniform mixing for measure-preserving $G$-actions and show that it implies completely positive sofic entropy. When $G$ contains an element of infinite order, we use this to…

For a jointly measurable probability-preserving action $\tau:\mathbb{R}^D\curvearrowright (X,\mu)$ and a tuple of polynomial maps $p_i:\mathbb{R}\to \mathbb{R}^D$, $i=1,2,...,k$, the multiple ergodic averages \[ \frac{1}{T}\int_0^T…

Sofic entropy is an invariant for probability-preserving actions of sofic groups. It was introduced a few years ago by Lewis Bowen, and shown to extend the classical Kolmogorov-Sinai entropy from the setting of amenable groups. Some parts…

Bowen's notion of sofic entropy is a powerful invariant for classifying probability-preserving actions of sofic groups. It can be defined in terms of the covering numbers of certain metric spaces associated to such an action, the `model…