On density of ergodic measures and generic points

Abstract: We provide conditions which guarantee that ergodic measures are dense in the simplex of invariant probability measures of a dynamical system given by a continuous map acting on a Polish space. Using them we study generic properties of invariant measures and prove that every invariant measure has a generic point. In the compact case, density of ergodic measures means that the simplex of invariant measures is either a singleton of a measure concentrated on a single periodic orbit or the Poulsen simplex. Our properties focus on the set of periodic points and we introduce two concepts: close-ability with respect to a set of periodic points and linkability of a set of periodic points. Examples are provided to show that these are independent properties. They hold, for example, for systems having the periodic specification property. But they hold also for a much wider class of systems which contains, for example, irreducible Markov chains over a countable alphabet, all $\beta$-shifts, all $S$-gap shifts, ${C}^1$-generic diffeomorphisms of a compact manifold $M$, and certain geodesic flows of a complete connected negatively curved manifold.