Under- and over-independence in measure preserving systems

Abstract

We introduce the notions of over- and under-independence for weakly mixing and (free) ergodic measure preserving actions and establish new results which complement and extend the theorems obtained in [BoFW] and [A]. Here is a sample of results obtained in this paper: $\cdot$ (Existence of density-1 UI and OI set) Let $(X,\mathcal{B},\mu,T)$ be an invertible probability measure preserving weakly mixing system. Then for any $d\in\mathbb{N}$, any non-constant integer-valued polynomials $p_{1},p_{2},\dots,p_{d}$ such that $p_{i}-p_{j}$ are also non-constant for all $i\neq j$, (i) there is $A\in\mathcal{B}$ such that the set $$\{n\in\mathbb{N}\colon\mu(A\cap T^{p_{1}(n)}A\cap\dots\cap T^{p_{d}(n)}A)<\mu(A)^{d+1}\}$$ is of density 1. (ii) there is $A\in\mathcal{B}$ such that the set $$\{n\in\mathbb{N}\colon\mu(A\cap T^{p_{1}(n)}A\cap\dots\cap T^{p_{d}(n)}A)>\mu(A)^{d+1}\}$$ is of density 1. $\cdot$ (Existence of Ces\`aro OI set) Let $(X,\mathcal{B},\mu,T)$ be a free, invertible, ergodic probability measure preserving system and $M\in\mathbb{N}$. %Suppose that $X$ contains an ergodic component which is aperiodic. Then there is $A\in\mathcal{B}$ such that $$\frac{1}{N}\sum_{n=M}^{N+M-1}\mu(A\cap T^{n}A)>\mu(A)^{2}$$ for all $N\in\mathbb{N}$. $\cdot$ (Nonexistence of Ces\`aro UI set) Let $(X,\mathcal{B},\mu,T)$ be an invertible probability measure preserving system. For any measurable set $A$ satisfying $\mu(A) \in (0,1)$, there exist infinitely many $N \in \mathbb{N}$ such that $$\frac{1}{N} \sum_{n=0}^{N-1} \mu ( A \cap T^{n}A) > \mu(A)^2.$$