  In this paper we characterize possible asymptotics for hitting times in
aperiodic ergodic dynamical systems: asymptotics are proved to be the
distribution functions of subprobability measures on the line belonging to the
functional class {6pt} {-3mm}(A){6mm}F={F:R\to [0,1]:\left\lbrack \matrixF is
increasing, null on ]-\infty, 0]; \noalignF is continuous and concave;
\noalignF(t)\le t for t\ge 0.\right.}. {6pt} Note that all possible asymptotics
are absolutely continuous.
