Under recurrence in the Khintchine recurrence theorem

The Khintchine recurrence theorem asserts that on a measure preserving system, for every set $A$ and $\varepsilon>0$, we have $\mu(A\cap T^{-n}A)\geq \mu(A)^2-\varepsilon$ for infinitely many $n\in \mathbb{N}$. We show that there are systems having under-recurrent sets $A$, in the sense that the inequality $\mu(A\cap T^{-n}A)< \mu(A)^2$ holds for every $n\in \mathbb{N}$. In particular, all ergodic systems of positive entropy have under-recurrent sets. On the other hand, answering a question of V.~Bergelson, we show that not all mixing systems have under-recurrent sets. We also study variants of these problems where the previous strict inequality is reversed, and deduce that under-recurrence is a much more rare phenomenon than over-recurrence. Finally, we study related problems pertaining to multiple recurrence and derive some interesting combinatorial consequences.Comment: 18 pages. Referee's comments incorporated. To appear in the Israel Journal of Mathematic

On two recurrence problems

We review some aspects of recurrence in topological dynamics and focus on two open problems. The first is an old one concerning the relation between Poincare and Birkhoff recurrence; the second, due to Boshernitzan, is about moving recurrence. We provide a partial answer to a topological version of the moving recurrence problem