Upper and lower bounds for the correlation function via inducing with general return times

Abstract: For non-uniformly expanding maps inducing with a general return time to Gibbs Markov maps, we provide sufficient conditions for obtaining higher order asymptotics for the correlation function in the infinite measure setting. Along the way, we show that these conditions are sufficient to recover previous results on sharp mixing rates in the finite measure setting for non-Markov maps, but for a larger class of observables. The results are illustrated by (finite and infinite measure preserving) non-Markov intervals maps with an indifferent fixed point.