Invariant measures on the circle and functional equations

Christopher Deninger

Published 2011-11-28Version 1

It is well known that real measures on the circle are characterized by their Herglotz transform, an analytic function in the unit disc. Invariance of the measure under N-multiplication translates into a functional equation for the Herglotz transform. Using elements from the theory of Hardy spaces one gets a somewhat surprising condition for a sequence of complex numbers to be the Fourier coefficients of an N-invariant measure. Next, starting from any atomless measure on the circle we construct atomless premesures of bounded kappa-variation in the sense of Korenblum which are invariant under s given pairwise prime integers. The relevant function kappa is a generalized entropy function depending on s. The proof uses Korenblum's generalized Nevanlinna theory. Passing to "kappa-singular measures" and extending these to elements in a Grothendieck group of possibly unbounded measures on the circle, one obtains generalized invariant measures which are carried by "kappa-Carleson" sets. The range of this construction depends on interesting questions about cyclicty in growth algebras of analytic functions on the unit disc. We also describe some very formal relations with Witt vectors. For example the Artin-Hasse p-exponential "is" a p-invariant premeasure of bounded kappa_1 variation.