This paper studies various aspects of inverse limits of locally expanding affine linear maps on flat branched manifolds, which I call flat Wieler solenoids. Among the aspects studied are different types of cohomologies, the rates of mixing given by the Ruelle spectrum of the hyperbolic map acting on this space, and solutions of the cohomological equation in primitive substitution subshifts for Hölder functions. The overarching theme is that considerations of $\alpha $-Hölder regularity on Cantor sets go a long way.

This paper presents sufficient conditions for a substitution tiling dynamical system of $\mathbb {R}^2$ , generated by a generalized substitution on three letters, to be topologically mixing. These conditions are shown to hold on a large class of tiling substitutions originally presented by Kenyon in 1996. This problem was suggested by Boris Solomyak, and many of the techniques that are used in this paper are based on the work by Kenyon, Sadun, and Solomyak [Topological mixing for substitutions on two letters. Ergod. Th. & Dynam. Sys.25(6) (2005), 1919–1934]. They studied one-dimensional tiling dynamical systems generated by substitutions on two letters and provided similar conditions sufficient to ensure that one-dimensional substitution tiling dynamical systems are topologically mixing. If a tiling dynamical system of $\mathbb {R}^2$ satisfies our conditions (and thus is topologically mixing), we can construct additional topologically mixing tiling dynamical systems of $\mathbb {R}^2$ . By considering the stepped surface constructed from a tiling $T_\sigma $ , we can get a new tiling of $\mathbb {R}^2$ by projecting the surface orthogonally onto an irrational plane through the origin.

We study multidimensional minimal and quasiperiodic shifts of finite type. We prove for these classes several results that were previously known for the shifts of finite type in general, without restriction. We show that some quasiperiodic shifts of finite type admit only non-computable configurations; we characterize the classes of Turing degrees that can be represented by quasiperiodic shifts of finite type. We also transpose to the classes of minimal/quasiperiodic shifts of finite type some results on subdynamics previously known for effective shifts without restrictions: every effective minimal (quasiperiodic) shift of dimension $d$ can be represented as a projection of a subdynamics of a minimal (respectively, quasiperiodic) shift of finite type of dimension $d+1$.

In this article, we calculate the Ellis semigroup of a certain class of constant-length substitutions. This generalizes a result of Haddad and Johnson [IP cluster points, idempotents, and recurrent sequences. Topology Proc.22 (1997) 213–226] from the binary case to substitutions over arbitrarily large finite alphabets. Moreover, we provide a class of counterexamples to one of the propositions in their paper, which is central to the proof of their main theorem. We give an alternative approach to their result, which centers on the properties of the Ellis semigroup. To do this, we also show a new way to construct an almost automorphic–isometric tower to the maximal equicontinuous factor of these systems, which gives a more particular approach than the one given by Dekking [The spectrum of dynamical systems arising from substitutions of constant length. Z. Wahrscheinlichkeitstheor. Verw. Geb.41(3) (1977/78) 221–239].

A domain exchange map (DEM) is a dynamical system defined on a smooth Jordan domain which is a piecewise translation. We explain how to use cut-and-project sets to construct minimal DEMs. Specializing to the case in which the domain is a square and the cut-and-project set is associated to a Galois lattice, we construct an infinite family of DEMs in which each map is associated to a Pisot–Vijayaraghavan (PV) number. We develop a renormalization scheme for these DEMs. Certain DEMs in the family can be composed to create multistage, renormalizable DEMs.

This paper establishes a fundamental difference between $\mathbb{Z}$ subshifts of finite type and $\mathbb{Z}^{2}$ subshifts of finite type in the context of ergodic optimization. Specifically, we consider a subshift of finite type $X$ as a subset of a full shift $F$. We then introduce a natural penalty function $f$, defined on $F$, which is 0 if the local configuration near the origin is legal and $-1$ otherwise. We show that in the case of $\mathbb{Z}$ subshifts, for all sufficiently small perturbations, $g$, of $f$, the $g$-maximizing invariant probability measures are supported on $X$ (that is, the set $X$ is stably maximized by $f$). However, in the two-dimensional case, we show that the well-known Robinson tiling fails to have this property: there exist arbitrarily small perturbations, $g$, of $f$ for which the $g$-maximizing invariant probability measures are supported on $F\setminus X$.

In this paper, we derive geometric and analytic properties of invariant sets, including orbit closures, of a large class of piecewise-affine maps $T$ on $\mathbb{R}^{d}$. We assume that (i) $T$ consists of finitely many affine maps defined on a Borel measurable partition of $\mathbb{R}^{d}$, (ii) there is a lattice $\mathscr{L}\subset \mathbb{R}^{d}$ that contains all of the mutual differences of the translation vectors of these affine maps, and (iii) all of the affine maps have the same linear part that is an automorphism of $\mathscr{L}$. We prove that finite-volume invariant sets of such piecewise-affine maps always consist of translational tiles relative to this lattice, up to some multiplicity. When the partition is Jordan measurable, we show that closures of bounded orbits of $T$ are invariant and yield Jordan measurable tiles, again up to some multiplicity. In the latter case, we show that compact $T$-invariant sets also consist of Jordan measurable tiles. We then utilize these results to quantify the rate of convergence of ergodic averages for $T$ in the case of bounded single tiles.

We characterize equicontinuous Delone dynamical systems as those coming from Delone sets with strongly almost periodic Dirac combs. Within the class of systems with finite local complexity, the only equicontinuous systems are then shown to be the crystallographic ones. On the other hand, within the class without finite local complexity, we exhibit examples of equicontinuous minimal Delone dynamical systems that are not crystallographic. Our results solve the problem posed by Lagarias as to whether a Delone set whose Dirac comb is strongly almost periodic must be crystallographic.

Tessellations of R3 that use convex polyhedral cells to fill the space can be extremely complicated. This is especially so for tessellations which are not ‘facet-to-facet’, that is, for those where the facets of a cell do not necessarily coincide with the facets of that cell's neighbours. Adjacency concepts between neighbouring cells (or between neighbouring cell elements) are not easily formulated when facets do not coincide. In this paper we make the first systematic study of these topological relationships when a tessellation of R3 is not facet-to-facet. The results derived can also be applied to the simpler facet-to-facet case. Our study deals with both random tessellations and deterministic ‘tilings’. Some new theory for planar tessellations is also given.

We show how to construct a topological groupoid directly from an inverse semigroup and prove that it is isomorphic to the universal groupoid introduced by Paterson. We then turn to a certain reduction of this groupoid. In the case of inverse semigroups arising from graphs (respectively, tilings), we prove that this reduction is the graph groupoid introduced by Kumjian \et (respectively, the tiling groupoid of Kellendonk). We also study the open invariant sets in the unit space of this reduction in terms of certain order ideals of the underlying inverse semigroup. This can be used to investigate the ideal structure of the associated reduced $C^\ast$-algebra.

We study the minimal complexity of tilings of a plane with a given tile set. We note that every tile set admits either no tiling or some tiling with Kolmogorov complexity of its (n × n)-squares. We construct tile sets for which this bound is tight: all (n × n)-squares in all tilings have complexity Ω(n). This adds a quantitative angle to classical results on non-recursivity of tilings—that we also develop in terms of Turing degrees of unsolvability.

This paper is a contribution to the general tiling problem for the hyperbolic plane. It is an intermediary result between the result obtained by R. Robinson [Invent. Math.44 (1978) 259–264] and the conjecture that the problem is undecidable.

Sturmian words are infinite words that have exactly n+1 factors of length n for every positive integer n. A Sturmian word sα,p is also defined as a coding over a two-letter alphabet of the orbit of point ρ under the action of the irrational rotation Rα : x → x + α (mod 1). A substitution fixes a Sturmian word if and only if it is invertible. The main object of the present paper is to investigate Rauzy fractals associated with two-letter invertible substitutions. As an application, we give an alternative geometric proof of Yasutomi's characterization of all pairs (α,p) such that sα,p is a fixed point of some non-trivial substitution.