This volume arose from a semester at CIRM-Luminy on "Thermodynamic Formalism: Applications to Probability, Geometry and Fractals" which brought together leading experts in the area to discuss topical problems and recent progress. It includes a number of surveys intended to make the field more accessible to younger mathematicians and scientists wishing to learn more about the area. Thermodynamic formalism has been a powerful tool in ergodic theory and dynamical system and its applications to other topics, particularly Riemannian geometry (especially in negative curvature), statistical properties of dynamical systems and fractal geometry. This work will be of value both to graduate students and more senior researchers interested in either learning about the main ideas and themes in thermodynamic formalism, and research themes which are at forefront of research in this area.

The classical theory of dynamical systems has tended to concentrate on Z-actions or R-actions. However in recent years there has been considerable progress in the study of higher dimensional actions (i.e. Zd or Rd with d>1). This book represents the proceedings of the 1993-4 Warwick Symposium on Zd actions. It comprises a mixture of surveys and original articles that span many of the diverse facets of the subject, including important connections with statistical mechanics, number theory and algebra. Researchers in ergodic theory and related fields will find that this book is an invaluable resource.

Pesin theory consists of the study of the theory of non-uniformly hyperbolic diffeomorphisms. The aim of this book is to provide the reader with a straightforward account of this theory, following the approaches of Katok and Newhouse. The notes are divided into two parts. The first develops the basic theory, starting with general ergodic theory and introducing Liapunov exponents. Part Two deals with the applications of Pesin theory and contains an account of the existence (and distribution) of periodic points. It closes with a look at stable manifolds, and gives some results on absolute continuity. These lecture notes provide a unique introduction to Pesin theory and its applications. The author assumes that the reader has only a good background of undergraduate analysis and nothing further, so making the book accessible to complete newcomers to the field.

The focus of this book is on open conformal dynamical systems corresponding to the escape of a point through an open Euclidean ball. The ultimate goal is to understand the asymptotic behavior of the escape rate as the radius of the ball tends to zero. In the case of hyperbolic conformal systems this has been addressed by various authors. The conformal maps considered in this book are far more general, and the analysis correspondingly more involved. The asymptotic existence of escape rates is proved and they are calculated in the context of (finite or infinite) countable alphabets, uniformly contracting conformal graph-directed Markov systems, and in particular, conformal countable alphabet iterated function systems. These results have direct applications to interval maps, rational functions and meromorphic maps. Towards this goal the authors develop, on a purely symbolic level, a theory of singular perturbations of Perron--Frobenius (transfer) operators associated with countable alphabet subshifts of finite type and Hoelder continuous summable potentials. This leads to a fairly full account of the structure of the corresponding open dynamical systems and their associated surviving sets.

This book is an introduction to topological dynamics and ergodic theory. It is divided into a number of relatively short chapters with the intention that each may be used as a component of a lecture course tailored to the particular audience. The authors provide a number of applications, principally to number theory and arithmetic progressions (through Van der Waerden's theorem and Szemerdi's theorem). This text is suitable for advanced undergraduate and beginning graduate students.

This book is an introduction to topological dynamics and ergodic theory. It is divided into a number of relatively short chapters with the intention that each may be used as a component of a lecture course tailored to the particular audience. The authors provide a number of applications, principally to number theory and arithmetic progressions (through Van der Waerden's theorem and Szemerdi's theorem). This text is suitable for advanced undergraduate and beginning graduate students.