To study arithmetic structures of natural numbers, we introduce a notion of entropy of arithmetic functions, called anqie entropy. This entropy possesses some crucial properties common to both Shannon's and Kolmogorov's entropies. We show that all arithmetic functions with zero anqie entropy form a C*-algebra. Its maximal ideal space defines our arithmetic compactification of natural numbers, which is totally disconnected but not extremely disconnected. We also compute the $K$-groups of the space of all continuous functions on the arithmetic compactification. As an application, we show that any topological dynamical system with topological entropy $\lambda$, can be approximated by symbolic dynamical systems with entropy less than or equal to $\lambda$.

Let $K$ be a self-similar set satisfying the open set condition. Following Kaimanovich’s elegant idea, it has been proved that on the symbolic space $X$ of $K$ a natural augmented tree structure $E$ exists; it is hyperbolic, and the hyperbolic boundary $\partial_H X$ with the Gromov metric is H\"older equivalent to $K$. In this paper we consider certain reversible random walks with return ratio $0 < \lambda < 1$ on $(X,E)$. We show that the Martin boundary ${\mathcal M}$ can be identified with $\partial_H X$ and $K$. With this setup and a device of Silverstein, we obtain precise estimates of the Martin kernel and the Na\"im kernel in terms of the Gromov product. Moreover, the Naïm kernel turns out to be a jump kernel satisfying the estimate $\Theta (\xi,\eta) \asymp |\xi-\eta|^{-(\alpha+\beta)}$, where $\alpha$ is the Hausdorff dimension of $K$ and $\beta$ depends on $\lambda$. For suitable $\beta$, the kernel defines a regular non-local Dirichlet form on $K$. This extends the results of Kigami concerning random walks on certain trees with Cantor-type sets as boundaries.

We prove that for any free ergodic probability measure-preserving action $${\mathbb{F}_n \curvearrowright (X, \mu)}$$ of a free group on$n$generators $${\mathbb{F}_n, 2\leq n \leq \infty}$$ , the associated group measure space II_{1}factor $${L^\infty (X)\rtimes \mathbb{F}_n}$$ has$L$^{∞}($X$) as its unique Cartan subalgebra, up to unitary conjugacy. We deduce that group measure space II_{1}factors arising from actions of free groups with different number of generators are never isomorphic. We actually prove unique Cartan decomposition results for II_{1}factors arising from arbitrary actions of a much larger family of groups, including all free products of amenable groups and their direct products.

Given a compact set of real numbers, a random $C^{m + \alpha}$ -diffeomorphism is constructed such that the image of any measure concentrated on the set and satisfying a certain condition involving a real number $s$ , almost surely has Fourier dimension greater than or equal to $s / (m + \alpha)$ . This is used to show that every Borel subset of the real numbers of Hausdorff dimension $s$ is $C^{m + \alpha}$ -equivalent to a set of Fourier dimension greater than or equal to $s / (m + \alpha )$ . In particular every Borel set is diffeomorphic to a Salem set, and the Fourier dimension is not invariant under $C^{m}$ -diffeomorphisms for any $m$ .

We investigate Sarnak's M\"obius Disjointness Conjecture through asymptotically periodic functions. It is shown that Sarnak's conjecture for rigid dynamical systems is equivalent to the disjointness of M\"obius from asymptotically periodic functions. We give sufficient conditions and a partial answer to the later one. As an application, we show that Sarnak's conjecture holds for a class of rigid dynamical systems, which improves an earlier result of Kanigowski-Lema{\'{n}}czyk-Radziwi{\l}{\l}.