Sofic entropy, after Lewis Bowen, David Kerr and Hanfeng Li

Abstract

The entropy in dynamical systems was introduced by A. Kolmogorov. Initially dedicated to iterations of one finite measure preserving transformation, the notion was gradually generalized so as to encompass amenable group actions and topological actions. L. Bowen (2008) succeeded in breaking the non-amenable frontier by introducing the sofic entropy. This invariant provides the same services as the classical entropy for the measured actions of the sofic groups (a class which contains the residually finite groups). In 2010, D. Kerr et H. Li established a topological version together with a variational principle.