Arnoux-Rauzy interval exchange transformations

Abstract

The Arnoux-Rauzy systems are defined in [5], both as symbolic systems on three letters and exchanges of six intervals on the circle. In connection with a conjecture of S.P. Novikov, we investigate the dynamical properties of the interval exchanges, and precise their relation with the symbolic systems, which was known only to be a semi-conjugacy; in order to do this, we define a new system which is an exchange of nine intervals on the line (it was described in [3] for a particular case). Our main result is that the semi-conjugacy determines a measure-theoretic isomorphism (between the three systems) under a diophantine (sufficient) condition, which is satisfied by almost all Arnoux-Rauzy systems for a suitable measure; but, under another condition, the interval exchanges are not uniquely ergodic and the isomorphism does not hold for all invariant measures; finally, we give conditions for these interval exchanges to be weakly mixing.