Extremal k-pseudocompact abelian groups

For a cardinal k, generalizing a recent result of Comfort and van Mill, we prove that every k-pseudocompact abelian group of weight >k has some proper dense k-pseudocompact subgroup and admits some strictly finer k-pseudocompact group topology.Comment: 24 page

Topological entropy for automorphisms of totally disconnected locally compact groups

We give a "limit-free formula" simplifying the computation of the topological entropy for topological automorphisms of totally disconnected locally compact groups. This result allows us to extend several basic properties of the topological entropy known to hold for compact groups

Adjoint entropy vs Topological entropy

Recently the adjoint algebraic entropy of endomorphisms of abelian groups was introduced and studied. We generalize the notion of adjoint entropy to continuous endomorphisms of topological abelian groups. Indeed, the adjoint algebraic entropy is defined using the family of all finite-index subgroups, while we take only the subfamily of all open finite-index subgroups to define the topological adjoint entropy. This allows us to compare the (topological) adjoint entropy with the known topological entropy of continuous endomorphisms of compact abelian groups. In particular, the topological adjoint entropy and the topological entropy coincide on continuous endomorphisms of totally disconnected compact abelian groups. Moreover, we prove two Bridge Theorems between the topological adjoint entropy and the algebraic entropy using respectively the Pontryagin duality and the precompact duality.Comment: 18 page

Functorial topologies and finite-index subgroups of abelian groups

In the general context of functorial topologies, we prove that in the lattice of all group topologies on an abelian group, the infimum between the Bohr topology and the natural topology is the profinite topology. The profinite topology and its connection to other functorial topologies is the main objective of the paper. We are particularly interested in the poset C(G) of all finite-index subgroups of an abelian group G, since it is a local base for the profinite topology of G. We describe various features of the poset C(G) (its cardinality, its cofinality, etc.) and we characterize the abelian groups G for which C(G)\{G} is cofinal in the poset of all subgroups of G ordered by inclusion. Finally, for pairs of functorial topologies T, S we define the equalizer E(T,S), which permits to describe relevant classes of abelian groups in terms of functorial topologies.Comment: 19 page

Discrete dynamical systems in group theory

In this expository paper we describe an unifying approach for many known entropies in Mathematics. First we recall the notion of semigroup entropy h_S in the category S of normed semigroups and contractive homomorphisms, recalling also its properties. For a specific category X and a functor F from X to S, we have the entropy h_F, defined by the composition of h_S with F, which automatically satisfies the same properties proved for h_S. This general scheme permits to obtain many of the known entropies as h_F, for appropriately chosen categories X and functors F. In the last part we recall the definition and the fundamental properties of the algebraic entropy for group endomorphisms, noting how its deeper properties depend on the specific setting. Finally we discuss the notion of growth for flows of groups, comparing it with the classical notion of growth for finitely generated groups

The Bridge Theorem for totally disconnected LCA groups

For a totally disconnected locally compact abelian group, we prove that the topological entropy of a continuous endomorphism coincides with the algebraic entropy of the dual endomorphism with respect to the Pontryagin duality. Moreover, this result is extended to all locally compact abelian groups under the assumption of additivity with respect to some fully invariant subgroups for both the topological and the algebraic entropy

Topological entropy in totally disconnected locally compact groups

Let $G$ be a topological group, let $\phi$ be a continuous endomorphism of $G$ and let $H$ be a closed $\phi$-invariant subgroup of $G$. We study whether the topological entropy is an additive invariant, that is, $$h_{top}(\phi)=h_{top}(\phi\restriction_H)+h_{top}(\bar\phi)\,,$$ where $\bar\phi:G/H\to G/H$ is the map induced by $\phi$. We concentrate on the case when $G$ is locally compact totally disconnected and $H$ is either compact or normal. Under these hypotheses, we show that the above additivity property holds true whenever $\phi H=H$ and $\ker(\phi)\leq H$. As an application we give a dynamical interpretation of the scale $s(\phi)$, by showing that $\log s(\phi)$ is the topological entropy of a suitable map induced by $\phi$. Finally, we give necessary and sufficient conditions for the equality $\log s(\phi)=h_{top}(\phi)$ to hold.Comment: 18 page