Extremes and Recurrence in Dynamical Systems

Abstract

This book provides a comprehensive introduction for the study of extreme events in the context of dynamical systems. The introduction provides a broad overview of the interdisciplinary research area of extreme events, underlining its relevance for mathematics, natural sciences, engineering, and social sciences. After exploring the basics of the classical theory of extreme events, the book presents a careful examination of how a dynamical system can serve as a generator of stochastic processes, and explores in detail the relationship between the hitting and return time statistics of a dynamical system and the possibility of constructing extreme value laws for given observables. Explicit derivation of extreme value laws are then provided for selected dynamical systems. The book then discusses how extreme events can be used as probes for inferring fundamental dynamical and geometrical properties of a dynamical system and for providing a novel point of view in problems of physical and geophysical relevance. A final summary of the main results is then presented along with a discussion of open research questions. Finally, an appendix with software in Matlab programming language allows the readers to develop further understanding of the presented concepts.