On statistical attractors and the convergence of time averages

Abstract

There are various notions of attractor in the literature, including measure (Milnor) attractors and statistical (Ilyashenko) attractors. In this paper we relate the notion of statistical attractor to that of the essential ω-limit set and prove some elementary results about these. In addition, we consider the convergence of time averages along trajectories. Ergodicity implies the convergence of time averages along almost all trajectories for all continuous observables. For non-ergodic systems, time averages may not exist even for almost all trajectories. However, averages of some observables may converge; we characterize conditions on observables that ensure convergence of time averages even in non-ergodic systems.