On the existence of maximizing measures for irreducible countable Markov shifts: a dynamical proof

Rodrigo Bissacot, Ricardo Freire

We prove that if ${\Sigma }_{\mathbf{A}}(\mathbb{N})$ is an irreducible Markov shift space over $\mathbb{N}$ and $f:{\Sigma }_{\mathbf{A}}(\mathbb{N})\to \mathbb{R}$ is coercive with bounded va…