We study a nonconventional ergodic average for asymptotically abelian weakly mixing C*-dynamical systems, related to a second iteration of Khinchin's recurrence theorem obtained by Bergelson in the measure-theoretic case. A noncommutative recurrence theorem for such systems is obtained as a corollary.

This mainly expository article is devoted to recent advances in the study of dynamical aspects of the Cuntz algebras 𝓞ₙ, n < ∞, via their automorphisms and, more generally, endomorphisms. A combinatorial description of permutative automorphisms of 𝓞ₙ in terms of labelled, rooted trees is presented. This in turn gives rise to an algebraic characterization of the restricted Weyl group of 𝓞ₙ. It is shown how this group is related to certain classical dynamical systems on the Cantor set. An identification...

The orbit equivalence of type $II{I}_0$ ergodic equivalence relations is considered. We show that it is equivalent to the outer conjugacy problem for the natural trace-scaling action of a countable dense ℝ-subgroup by automorphisms of the Radon-Nikodym skew product extensions of these relations. A similar result holds for the weak equivalence of arbitrary type $II{I}_0$ cocycles with values in Abelian groups.

We discuss the classification up to orbit equivalence of inclusions 𝑆 ⊂ ℛ of measured ergodic discrete hyperfinite equivalence relations. In the case of type III relations, the orbit equivalence classes of such inclusions of finite index are completely classified in terms of triplets consisting of a transitive permutation group G on a finite set (whose cardinality is the index of 𝑆 ⊂ ℛ), an ergodic nonsingular ℝ-flow V and a homomorphism of G to the centralizer of V.

Using very original methods from operator algebras, Sorin Popa has shown that the orbit structure of the Bernoulli action of a property (T) group, completely remembers the group and the action. This information is even essentially contained in the crossed product von Neumann algebra. This is the first von Neumann strong rigidity theorem in the literature. The same methods allow Popa to obtain II${}_1$ factors with prescribed countable fundamental group.

We show that the set of those Markov semigroups on the Schatten class ₁ such that in the strong operator topology $li{m}_{t\to \infty }T\left(t\right)=Q$, where Q is a one-dimensional projection, form a meager subset of all Markov semigroups.