We study the existence of transitive exchange maps with flips defined on the unit circle. We provide a complete answer to the question of whether there exists a transitive exchange map of the unit circle defined on n subintervals and having f flips.
There exist uniquely ergodic affine interval exchange transformations of [0,1] with flips having wandering intervals and such that the support of the invariant measure is a Cantor set.
Let $mathcal G$ be the group of all Interval Exchange Transformations. Results of Arnoux-Fathi ([Arn81b]), Sah ([Sah81]) and Vorobets ([Vor17]) state that $mathcal G_0$ the subgroup of $mathcal G$ generated by its commutators is simple. In [Arn81b], Arnoux proved that the group $overline{mathcal G}$ of all Interval Exchange Transformations with flips is simple. We establish that every element of $overline{mathcal G}$ has a commutator length not exceeding $6$. Moreover, we give conditions on $mathcal G$ that guarantee that the commutator lengths of the elements of $mathcal G_0$ are uniformly bounded, and in this case for any $gin mathcal G_0$ this length is at most $5$. As analogous arguments work for the involution length in $overline{mathcal G}$, we add an appendix whose purpose is to prove that every element of $overline{mathcal G}$ has an involution length not exceeding $12$.
The Arnoux-Rauzy systems are defined in cite{ar}, both as symbolic systems on three letters and exchanges of six intervals on the circle. In connection with a conjecture of S.P. Novikov, we investigate the dynamical properties of the interval exchanges, and precise their relation with the symbolic systems, which was known only to be a semi-conjugacy; in order to do this, we define a new system which is an exchange of nine intervals on the line (it was described in cite{abb} for a particular case). Our main result is that the semi-conjugacy determines a measure-theoretic isomorphism (between the three systems) under a diophantine (sufficient) condition, which is satisfied by almost all Arnoux-Rauzy systems for a suitable measure; but, under another condition, the interval exchanges are not uniquely ergodic and the isomorphism does not hold for all invariant measures; finally, we give conditions for these interval exchanges to be weakly mixing.
In this paper, we study distortion in the group $mathcal A$ of Affine Interval Exchange Transformations (AIET). We prove that any distorted element $f$ of $mathcal A$, has an iterate $f^ k$ that is conjugate by an element of $mathcal A$ to a product of infinite order restricted rotations, with pairwise disjoint supports. As consequences we prove that no Baumslag-Solitar group, $BS(m,n)$ with $vert m vert eq vert n vert$, acts faithfully by elements of $mathcal A$, every finitely generated nilpotent group of $mathcal A$ is virtually abelian and there is no distortion element in $mathcal A_{mathbb Q}$, the subgroup of $mathcal A$ consisting of rational AIETs.
We discuss conditions for unique ergodicity of a collective random walk on a continuous circle. Individual particles in this collective motion perform independent (and different in general) random walks conditioned by the assumption that the particles cannot overrun each other. Additionally to sufficient conditions for the unique ergodicity we discover a new and unexpected way for its violation due to excessively large local jumps. Necessary and sufficient conditions for the unique ergodicity of the deterministic version of this system are obtained as well. Technically our approach is based on the interlacing property of the spin function which describes states of pairs of particles in coupled processes under study.