FOUNDATIONS OF FRACTIONAL DYNAMICS

Abstract

Time flow in dynamical systems is reconsidered in the ultralong time limit. The ultralong time limit is a limit in which a discretized time flow is iterated infinitely often and the discretization time step is infinite. The new limit is used to study induced flows in ergodic theory, in particular for subsets of measure zero. Induced flows on subsets of measure zero require an infinite renormalization of time in the ultralong time limit. It is found that induced flows are given generically by stable convolution semigroups and not by the conventional translation groups. This could give new insight into the origin of macroscopic irreversibility. Moreover, the induced semigroups are generated by fractional time derivatives of orders less than unity, and not by a first order time derivative. Invariance under the induced semiflows therefore leads to a new form of stationarity, called fractional stationarity. Fractionally stationary states are dissipative. Fractional stationarity also provides the dynamical foundation for a previously proposed generalized equilibrium concept.