Weak Gibbs Measures for Local Homeomorphisms

Abstract: We study a broad class of local homeomorphisms and continuous potentials, proving the existence and uniqueness of weak Gibbs measures. From the Gibbs property, we show the uniqueness of equilibrium states and derive a large deviations principle. Furthermore, we extend these results to a class of attractors that are semiconjugate to local homeomorphisms from our original setting. Our approach is based on non-uniform conformal-like property and applies to a wide range of topological dynamical systems, including non-uniformly expanding maps, zooming local homeomorphisms, attractors arising from solenoid-like constructions and certain families of partially hyperbolic horseshoes.