A major motivation for the development of semigroup theory was, and still is, its applications to the study of formal languages. Therefore, it is not surprising that the correspondence $mathcal Xmapsto B(mathcal X)$, associating to each symbolic dynamical system $mathcal X$ the formal language $B(mathcal X)$ of its blocks, entails a connection between symbolic dynamics and semigroup theory. In this article we survey some developments on this connection, since when it was noticed in an article by Almeida, published in the CIM bulletin, in 2003.
We construct symbolic dynamics on sets of full measure (w.r.t. an ergodic measure of positive entropy) for $C^{1+epsilon}$ flows on compact smooth three-dimensional manifolds. One consequence is that the geodesic flow on the unit tangent bundle of a compact $C^infty$ surface has at least const $times(e^{hT}/T)$ simple closed orbits of period less than $T$, whenever the topological entropy $h$ is positive -- and without further assumptions on the curvature.
This survey describes the recent advances in the construction of Markov partitions for nonuniformly hyperbolic systems. One important feature of this development comes from a finer theory of nonuniformly hyperbolic systems, which we also describe. The Markov partition defines a symbolic extension that is finite-to-one and onto a non-uniformly hyperbolic locus, and this provides dynamical and statistical consequences such as estimates on the number of closed orbits and properties of equilibrium measures. The class of systems includes diffeomorphisms, flows, and maps with singularities.
A zero-dimensional (resp. symbolic) flow is a suspension flow over a zero-dimensional system (resp. a subshift). We show that any topological flow admits a principal extension by a zero-dimensional flow. Following [Bur19] we deduce that any topological flow admits an extension by a symbolic flow if and only if its time-$t$ map admits an extension by a subshift for any $t eq 0$. Moreover the existence of such an extension is preserved under orbit equivalence for regular topological flows, but this property does not hold more true for singular flows. Finally we investigate symbolic extensions for singular suspension flows. In particular, the suspension flow over the full shift on ${0,1}^{mathbb Z}$ with a roof function $f$ vanishing at the zero sequence $0^infty$ admits a principal symbolic extension or not depending on the smoothness of $f$ at $0^infty$.
Let $DeltasubsetneqV$ be a proper subset of the vertices $V$ of the defining graph of an irreducible and aperiodic shift of finite type $(Sigma_{A}^{+},S)$. Let $Sigma_{Delta}$ be the subshift of allowable paths in the graph of $Sigma_{A}^{+}$ which only passes through the vertices of $Delta$. For a random point $x$ chosen with respect to an equilibrium state $mu$ of a Holder potential $phi$ on $Sigma_{A}^{+}$, let $tau_{n}$ be the point process defined as the sum of Dirac point masses at the times $k>0$, suitably rescaled, for which the first $n$-symbols of $S^k x$ belong to $Delta$. We prove that this point process converges in law to a marked Poisson point process of constant parameter measure. The scale is related to the pressure of the restriction of $phi$ to $Sigma_{Delta}$ and the parameters of the limit law are explicitly computed.