Sensitive dependence on initial conditions and chaotic group actions

Fabrizio Polo

Published 2009-07-15Version 1

A continuous action of a group G on a compact metric space has sensitive dependence on initial conditions if there is a number e>0 such that for any open set U we can find g in G such that g.U has diameter greater than e. We prove that if a G action preserves a probability measure of full support, then the system is either minimal and equicontinuous, or has sensitive dependence on initial conditions. This generalizes the invertible case of a theorem of Glasner and Weiss. We prove that when a finitely generated, solvable group, acts and certain cyclic subactions have dense sets of minimal points, then the system has sensitive dependence on initial conditions. Additionally, we show how to construct examples of non-compact monothetic groups, and transitive, non-minimal, almost-equicontinuous, recurrent, group actions.