An answer to Furstenberg's problem on topological disjointness

Abstract

In this paper we give an answer to Furstenberg's problem on topological disjointness. Namely, we show that a transitive system $(X,T)$ is disjoint from all minimal systems if and only if $(X,T)$ is weakly mixing and there is some countable dense subset $D$ of $X$ such that for any minimal system $(Y,S)$, any point $y\in Y$ and any open neighbourhood $V$ of $y$, and for any nonempty open subset $U\subset X$, there is $x\in D\cap U$ satisfying that $\{n\in {\mathbb{Z}}_{+}:T^{n}x\in U,S^{n}y\in V\}$ is syndetic. Some characterization for the general case is also described. As applications we show that if a transitive system $(X,T)$ is disjoint from all minimal systems, then so are $(X^n,T^{(n)})$ and $(X,T^n)$ for any $n\in \mathbb{N}$. It turns out that a transitive system $(X,T)$ is disjoint from all minimal systems if and only if the hyperspace system $(K(X),T_K)$ is disjoint from all minimal systems.

To appear in Ergodic Theory and Dynamical Systems