The natural measure of a symbolic dynamical system

TL;DR

This paper explores the natural measure of symbolic dynamical systems, demonstrating its properties and extensions from finite to countably infinite matrices, with implications for ergodic theory and shift spaces.

Contribution

It extends the understanding of the natural measure to more general shift spaces, including countably infinite matrices and sofic shifts, using Perron-Frobenius theory.

Findings

The natural measure coincides with the Parry measure for finite irreducible shifts.

The measure is ergodic with maximum entropy.

Extensions to countably infinite matrices are established.

Abstract

This study investigates the natural or intrinsic measure of a symbolic dynamical system $\Sigma$. The measure $\mu([i_{1},i_{2},...,i_{n}])$ of a pattern $[i_{1},i_{2},...,i_{n}]$ in $\Sigma$ is an asymptotic ratio of $[i_{1},i_{2},...,i_{n}]$, which arises in all patterns of length $n$ within very long patterns, such that in a typical long pattern, the pattern $[i_{1},i_{2},...,i_{n}]$ appears with frequency $\mu([i_{1},i_{2},...,i_{n}])$. When $\Sigma=\Sigma(A)$ is a shift of finite type and $A$ is an irreducible $N\times N$ non-negative matrix, the measure $\mu$ is the Parry measure. $\mu$ is ergodic with maximum entropy. The result holds for sofic shift $\mathcal{G}=(G,\mathcal{L})$, which is irreducible. The result can be extended to $\Sigma(A)$, where $A$ is a countably infinite matrix that is irreducible, aperiodic and positive recurrent. By using the Krieger cover, the natural measure of a general shift space is studied in the way of a countably infinite state of sofic shift, including context free shift. The Perron-Frobenius Theorem for non-negative matrices plays an essential role in this study.