Hitting Time Statistics and Extreme Value Theory

We consider discrete time dynamical system and show the link between Hitting Time Statistics (the distribution of the first time points land in asymptotically small sets) and Extreme Value Theory (distribution properties of the partial maximum of stochastic processes). This relation allows to study Hitting Time Statistics with tools from Extreme Value Theory, and vice versa. We apply these results to non-uniformly hyperbolic systems and prove that a multimodal map with an absolutely continuous invariant measure must satisfy the classical extreme value laws (with no extra condition on the speed of mixing, for example). We extend these ideas to the subsequent returns to the asymptotically small sets, linking the Poisson statistics of both processes.