# On the computability properties of topological entropy: a general approach

## TL;DR

This paper investigates the computability of topological entropy in general metric spaces, revealing that its computability class varies with system constraints and the geometry of the space, ranging from a2 to a1 to computable numbers.

## Contribution

It generalizes the computability analysis of topological entropy beyond symbolic systems, characterizing how constraints and space geometry influence its computational complexity.

## Key findings

- Entropy is always a2-computable in the general setting.
- Constraints can lower the entropy's computability class, e.g., to a1 or computable numbers.
- Over [0,1], entropy corresponds exactly to a1-computable numbers, with a switch to computable numbers in the quadratic family.

## Abstract

The dynamics of symbolic systems, such as multidimensional subshifts of finite type or cellular automata, are known to be closely related to computability theory. In particular, the appropriate tools to describe and classify topological entropy for this kind of systems turned out to be of computational nature. Part of the great importance of these symbolic systems relies on the role they have played in understanding more general systems over non-symbolic spaces. The aim of this article is to investigate topological entropy from a computability point of view in this more general, not necessarily symbolic setting. In analogy to effective subshifts, we consider computable maps over effective compact sets in general metric spaces, and study the computability properties of their topological entropies. We show that even in this general setting, the entropy is always a $\Sigma_2$-computable number. We then study how various dynamical and analytical constrains affect this upper bound, and prove that it can be lowered in different ways depending on the constraint considered. In particular, we obtain that all $\Sigma_2$-computable numbers can already be realized within the class of surjective computable maps over $\{0,1\}^{\mathbb{N}}$, but that this bound decreases to $\Pi_{1}$(or upper)-computable numbers when restricted to expansive maps. On the other hand, if we change the geometry of the ambient space from the symbolic $\{0,1\}^{\mathbb{N}}$ to the unit interval $[0,1]$, then we find a quite different situation -- we show that the possible entropies of computable systems over $[0,1]$ are exactly the $\Sigma_{1}$(or lower)-computable numbers and that this characterization switches down to precisely the computable numbers when we restrict the class of system to the quadratic family.