From rates of mixing to recurrence times via large deviations

AbstractA classic approach in dynamical systems is to use particular geometric structures to deduce statistical properties, for example the existence of invariant measures with stochastic-like behaviour such as large deviations or decay of correlations. Such geometric structures are generally highly non-trivial and thus a natural question is the extent to which this approach can be applied. In this paper we show that in many cases stochastic-like behaviour itself implies that the system has certain non-trivial geometric properties, which are therefore necessary as well as sufficient conditions for the occurrence of the statistical properties under consideration. As a by product of our techniques we also obtain some new results on large deviations for certain classes of systems which include Viana maps and multidimensional piecewise expanding maps