Almost periodic events generated by random flows

Abstract

Under suitable conditions, a measurable action of a semigroup S on a probability space $(\varOmega,\mathcal {F},\mu )$ generates various σ-fields reflecting the dynamical properties of the associated representation of S and containing the information provided by certain subspaces of $\mathcal {L}^{1}(\mu )$ determined by the representation. For example, the functions in $\mathcal {L}^{1}(\mu )$ with norm relatively compact orbits under S are precisely the $\mathcal {L}^{1}$ functions that are measurable with respect to the σ-field of almost periodic events. In the special case of a measure-preserving action, the minimal projection operator associated with the action is a conditional expectation with respect to this σ-field, leading to a result on transformation of martingales. The unifying construct throughout the paper is the weakly almost periodic compactification of S, a powerful tool that provides a convenient platform to study operator semigroups associated with the action.