Statistical Properties of Dynamical Systems

Statistical Properties of Dynamical Systems

Spring Semester 2026
Department of Mathematics
University of Maryland


Schedule

Starting: 26 January, 2026.
End: 08 May 2026.

Monday 13:00-14:15, Room MTH B0429.
Wednesday 13:00-14:15, Room MTH B0429.


INFOS:

  • The calsses of 5/4/2026 and 5/6/2026 are moved to Friday 5/8/2026 at 2 pm

    Syllabus, and References

    Many dynamical systems behave similarly to a stochastic process; they are (very loosely) called "chaotic".
    The course aims to illustrate several different techniques for studying and making precise such phenomena.
    I particular, I will discuss the following properties:

  • invariant measures and decay of correlations
  • statistical stability and linear response
  • Central limit Theorem, Large deviations, Invariance principle, extreme values statistics ...

    Such concepts will be investigated by analyzing classes of systems of increasing complexity. More precisely:

  • Expanding maps (smooth and non-smooth)
  • Uniformly hyperbolic maps
  • Uniformly hyperbolic flows
  • Partially hyperbolic maps
  • non-uniformly hyperbolic systems

    I will try to provide some notes for the material that cannot be easily found in print. Some of the topics can be found in:

  • Transfer operators in Hyperbolic Dynamics An introduction, C.Liverani, M. Demers and N. Kiamari. 33 Colloquio Brasilero de Matematica. Editora do IMPA. pp.252 (2021)
  • V. Baladi. Positive Transfer Operators and Decay of Correlations. Advanced Series in Nonlinear Dynamics: Volume 16 (2000) https://doi.org/10.1142/3657
  • Boyarsky, Abraham; Gò ra, Pawel Laws of chaos. Invariant measures and dynamical systems in one dimension. Probab. Appl.Birkhauser Boston, Inc., Boston, MA, (1997).

    The first is partially a review, so some topics are not treated in full detail. The second is much more detailed, although it covers less material. The third is a bit dated and covers only one dimensional maps, but it contains some nice facts. For material on the family of are preserving intermitted maps and birth of elliptic islands see here and here.


    List of Lectures

    Notes

    Here are some notes (for the students eyes only) that I hope may help. In particular, the appendices contain all the functional analysis needed to follow the course.
    I will updated them continuously, without warning, so check for the current version.
    They are most likely full of mistakes, so read at your own risk.
    I will try to upload more as we prooceed (but do not keep your hopes too high).

  • An idiosyncratic introduction to Dynamical Systems. These are notes intended for people with little or no knowledge of synamical systems. However, staring from chaper 6 they are increasingly relevant also for the present course. Moreover, the Appendices A, C, D, F, G will be rather important for us.
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