Some remarks concerning the individual ergodic theorem of information theory

Abstract

Let (X,μ, T) be an ergodic dynamic system and let ξ = (C₁, C₂, ...) be a discrete decomposition of X. Conditions are considered for the existence almost everywhere of

$$\mathop {\lim }\limits_{n \to \infty } \frac{1}{n}\left| {\log \mu (C_{\xi ^n } (x))} \right|,$$

whereC _ξn(x) is the element of the decomposition ξⁿ = ξ V T ξ V ... < T^n-1ξ containing x. It is proved that the condition H(ξ) < ∞ is close to being necessary. If T is a Markov automorphism and ξ is the decomposition into states, then the limit exists, even if H(ξ) = ∞, and is equal to the entropy of the chain.