The dynamical Borel-Cantelli lemma and the waiting time problems

Abstract

We investigate the connection between the dynamical Borel-Cantelli and waiting time results. We prove that if a system has the dynamical Borel-Cantelli property, then the time needed to enter for the first time in a sequence of small balls scales as the inverse of the measure of the balls. Conversely if we know the waiting time behavior of a system we can prove that certain sequences of decreasing balls satisfies the Borel-Cantelli property. This allows to obtain Borel-Cantelli like results in systems like axiom A and generic interval exchanges.