On a set of numbers arising in the dynamics of unimodal maps

In this paper we construct a correspondence between the parameter spaces of two families of one-dimensional dynamical systems, the alpha-continued fraction transformations T_alpha and unimodal maps. This correspondence identifies bifurcation parameters in the two families, and allows one to transfer topological and metric properties from one setting to the other. As an application, we recover results about the real slice of the Mandelbrot set, and the set of univoque numbers.

We investigate the topological zeta function for unimodal maps in general and dynamical zeta functions for the tent map in particular. For the generic situation, when the kneading sequence is aperiodic, it is shown that the zeta functions have a natural boundary along its radius of convergence, beyond which the function lacks analytic continuation. We make a detailed study of the function $\prod_{n=0}^{\infty}(1-z^{2^n})$ associated with sequences of period doublings. It is d...

In this work we study the Artin-Mazur zeta function for piecewise monotone functions acting on a compact interval of real numbers. In the case of unimodal maps, Milnor and Thurston gave a characterization for the rationality of the Artin-Mazur zeta function in terms of the orbit of the unique turning point. We show that for multimodal maps, the previous characterization does not hold.

We review recent results that lead to a very precise understanding of the dynamics of typical unimodal maps from the statistical point of view. We also describe the (generalized) renormalization approach to the study of the statistical properties of typical unimodal maps.

We present a new, elementary, dynamical proof of the prime number theorem.

We show that generating functions associated to the sequence of convergents of a quadratic irrational are related in a natural way to the dynam- ical zeta function of a hyperbolic automorphism of the 2-torus. As a corollary, this shows that the L\'evy constant of a quadratic irrational appears naturally as the topological entropy of such maps.

Generalized beta-transformations are the class of piecewise continuous interval maps given by taking the beta-transformation $x \mapsto \beta x ~\pmod 1$, where $\beta>1$, and replacing some of the branches with branches of constant negative slope. If the orbit of 1 is finite, then the map is Markov, and we call beta (which must be an algebraic number) a generalized Parry number. We show that the Galois conjugates of such beta have modulus less than 2, and the modulus is boun...

In this paper we build a geometric model for the renormalisation of irrationally indifferent fixed points. The geometric model incorporates the fine arithmetic properties of the rotation number at the fixed point. Using this model for the renormalisation, we build a topological model for the dynamics of a holomorphic map near an irrationally indifferent fixed point. Then, we explain the topology of the maximal invariant set for the model, and also explain the dynamics of the ...

This report on the topics in the title was written for a lecture series at the Southwestern Center for Arithmetic Algebraic Geometry at the University of Arizona.It may serve as an introduction to certain conjectural relations between number theory and the theory of dynamical systems on foliated spaces. The material is based on streamlined and updated versions of earlier papers on this subject.

In this paper, we will prove the rationality of the Artin-Mazur zeta functions of some non-Archimedean dynamical systems.