We will now apply the machinery already developed to a few concrete problems.

Proposition 1 Let ${G}$ be a compact abelian group and ${T}$ the rotation by ${a \in G}$. Then ${T}$ is uniquely ergodic (with the Haar measure invariant) if ${a^{\mathbb{Z}}}$ is dense in ${G}$.

The proof is straightforward. Suppose ${\mu}$ is invariant with respect to rotations by ${a}$. Then for ${f \in C(G)}$, we have

$\displaystyle \int f(a^m x ) d \mu = \int f(x) d \mu, \quad \forall m \in \mathbb{Z}$

and hence

$\displaystyle \int f(bx ) d \mu = \int f(x) d \mu, \quad \forall m \in \mathbb{Z},$

for any ${b \in G}$, which means that ${\mu}$ must be Haar measure (which is unique).

Corollary 2 An irrational rotation of the unit circle ${S^1}$ is uniquely ergodic.

Application: Equidistribution

Theorem 3 Let ${\xi \in \mathbb{R}}$ be irrational and let ${f: \mathbb{R} \rightarrow \mathbb{C}}$ be continuous and ${2 \pi }$-periodic. Then$\displaystyle \boxed{ \lim_{N \rightarrow \infty} \frac{1}{N} \sum_{i=0}^{N-1} f( n \xi) = \int_0^1 f(x) dx .}$ (more…)