Extremal Index, Hitting Time Statistics and periodicity

Abstract: We give conditions to prove the existence of an Extremal Index for general stationary stochastic processes by detecting the presence of one or more underlying periodic phenomena. This theory, besides giving general useful tools to identify the extremal index, is also tailored to dynamical systems. In fact, we apply this idea to analyse the possible Extreme Value Laws for the stochastic process generated by observations taken along dynamical orbits with respect to various measures. As in the authors' previous works on this topic, the analogy of these laws in the context of hitting time statistics is explained and exploited extensively.