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Abstract

Let $\mu $ be a shift-invariant measure on $\Lambda ^{\mathbb N}$, where $\Lambda $ is a finite or countable alphabet. We say that an infinite set $S=\{s_1,s_2,\dots \}\subset \mathbb N $ (where $s_1 \lt s_2 \lt \cdots $) preserves [destroys] $\mu $-normality if, for any $x=(x_1,x_2,\dots )\in \Lambda ^{\mathbb N}$ generic for $\mu $, the sequence $x|_S=(x_{s_1},x_{s_2},\dots )$ is [is not] generic for $\mu $. It is known from the work of Kamae and Weiss that if $\mu $ is i.i.d. then any deterministic set of positive lower density preserves $\mu $-normality. We show that deterministic sets, except ones with a very primitive structure that we call “superficial”, destroy $\mu $-normality for any non-i.i.d. measure $\mu $ with completely positive entropy (CPE). This generalizes Heersink and Vandehey’s result for arithmetic progressions and the Gauss measure (associated to the continued fraction transformation). We give several examples showing that outside the class of measures with CPE, $\mu $-normality preservation can coexist with nearly any combination of three parameters: determinism of $S$ (or its lack), entropy of $\mu $ (zero or positive), and disjointness (or its lack) between $\mu $ and the measures quasi-generated by $ 1_S\in \{0,1\}^{\mathbb N}$.