Spectral Theory of Dynamical Systems

Book excerpt: This book treats some basic topics in the spectral theory of dynamical systems, where by a dynamical system we mean a measure space on which a group of automorphisms acts preserving the sets of measure zero. The treatment is at a general level, but even here, two theorems which are not on the surface, one due to H. Helson and W. Parry and the other due to B. Host are presented. Moreover non­ singular automorphisms are considered and systems ofimprimitivity are discussed. and they are used to describe Riesz products, suitably generalised, are considered the spectral types and eigenvalues of rank one automorphisms. On the other hand topics such as spectral characterisations of various mixing conditions, which can be found in most texts on ergodic theory, and also the spectral theory of Gauss Dynamical Systems, which is very well presented in Cornfeld, Fomin, and Sinai's book on Ergodic Theory, are not treated in this book. A number of discussions and correspondence on email with El Abdalaoui El Houcein made possible the presentation of mixing rank one construction of D. S. Ornstein. Iam deeply indebted to G. R. Goodson. He has edited the book and suggested a number of corrections and improvements in both content and language.