ICERM Semester Program on "Complex and Arithmetic Dynamics"
(January 30, 2012 - May 4, 2012)

Organizing Committee

Julia set

 

[Julia Set image courtesy of wikimedia]
This image represents the Julia set for a complex quadratic polynomial.

 


Introduction

The goal of this program is to bring together researchers in complex dynamics, arithmetic dynamics, and related fields, with the purpose of stimulating interactions, promoting collaborations, making progress on fundamental problems, and developing theoretical and computational foundations on which future work will build. Complex dynamics is the study of iteration of holomorphic self-maps of a complex space. Fundamental examples of such maps arise as algebraic self-maps of algebraic varieties. Starting with the fundamental results of Fatou and Julia, complex dynamics has evolved into a well established field with many deep theorems and many important unresolved questions. Arithmetic dynamics refers to the study of number theoretic phenomena arising in dynamical systems on algebraic varieties. Many global problems in arithmetic dynamics are analogues of classical problems in the theory of Diophantine equations or arithmetic geometry, including for example uniform bounds for rational periodic points, intersections of orbits with subvarieties, height bounds and/or measure-theoretic distributions of dynamically defined sets of special points, and local-global obstructions.

While global arithmetic dynamics bears a resemblence to arithmetic geometry, the theory of p-adic (nonarchimedean) dynamics draws much of its inspiration from classical complex dynamics. As in complex dynamics, a fundamental question is to characterize orbits by their topological or metric properties. Recent progress in p-adic dynamics, especially in dimension one, has benefited from the introduction of Berkovich space into the subject.

Many computational and graphical techniques have been developed for the study of complex dynamics that have been of immense value in the development of the complex theory. Among the goals of the program will be the development of a comprehensive set of tools for studying p-adic and arithmetic dynamics.


Complex and Arithmetic Dynamics - Seminars


This page will show upcoming seminars that will be scheduled by organizers, speakers, and participants of the Spring 2012 semester program Complex and Arithmetic Dynamics. Walk-ins are welcomed and encouraged for these seminars. Please check back regularly for updates.


MondayApril 30, 2012
TimeDescriptionSpeakerLocationAbstractsSlides
3:30 - 4:00Coffee/Tea Break11th Floor Collaborative Space

TuesdayMay 1, 2012
TimeDescriptionSpeakerLocationAbstractsSlides
11:00 - 11:15Linearizability in characteristic p and periodic orbits in characteristic 0Mike Zieve, University of Michigan11th Floor Lecture Hall
11:20 - 11:35The third dimensionPaul Vojta, University of California, Berkeley11th Floor Lecture Hall
11:40 - 11:55Geometry of four folds with non-commuting involutionsJorge Alejandro Pineiro, Bronx Community College, CUNY11th Floor Lecture Hall
12:00 - 2:20Break for Lunch
2:20 - 2:35Monomial maps and linear spaces that contain many iteratesBianca Viray, Brown University11th Floor Lecture Hall
2:40 - 2:55TBAJeremy Kahn, Brown University11th Floor Lecture Hall
3:00 - 3:30Coffee/Tea Break11th Floor Collaborative Space
3:30 - 3:45Hyperbolic components of rational mapsXiaoguang Wang, Chinese Academy of Sciences11th Floor Lecture Hall
3:50 - 4:05Let's Do a Twist!Bianca Thompson, University of Hawaii at Manoa11th Floor Lecture Hall
4:10 - 4:25Minimal discriminant problemRobert Rumely, University of Georgia11th Floor Lecture Hall

WednesdayMay 2, 2012
TimeDescriptionSpeakerLocationAbstractsSlides
9:30 - 9:45On the Canonical Height Functions for Two Dimensional Monomial Maps Part IChi-Hao Wang, National Central University11th Floor Lecture Hall
9:50 - 10:05On the Canonical Height Functions for Two Dimensional Monomial Maps Part IIJan-Li Lin, Indiana University11th Floor Lecture Hall
10:10 - 10:25Preperiodic points: some examples and a conjectureBen Hutz, City University of New York (CUNY)11th Floor Lecture Hall
10:30 - 11:00Coffee/Tea Break11th Floor Collaborative Space
11:00 - 11:15Post-critical boundedness for polynomials over C_pJacqueline Anderson, Brown University11th Floor Lecture Hall
11:20 - 11:35TBAFrank Palladino, University of Rhode Island11th Floor Lecture Hall
11:40 - 11:55Minimal subsets of a dynamical system attached to a Drinfeld moduleCecile Armana, Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster11th Floor Lecture Hall
12:00 - 2:00Break for Lunch
2:00 - 3:00Computational Forum Part ILed by Ben Hutz, City University of New York (CUNY)11th Floor Lecture Hall
3:00 - 3:30Coffee/Tea Break11th Floor Collaborative Space
3:30 - 4:30Computational Forum Part IILed by Ben Hutz, City University of New York (CUNY)11th Floor Lecture Hall

ThursdayMay 3, 2012
TimeDescriptionSpeakerLocationAbstractsSlides
9:50 - 10:05Moduli Space of Polarized Dynamical SystemsAnupam Bhatnagar, City University of New York (CUNY)11th Floor Lecture Hall
10:10 - 10:25Rational maps with finitely many repelling cyclesJuan Rivera-Letelier, Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile11th Floor Lecture Hall
10:30 - 10:50A survey of results on commuting polynomials in positive characteristicAndrew Bridy, University of Wisconsin, Zachary Louis Scherr, University of Michigan, Derek Garton, University of Wisconsin11th Floor Lecture Hall
11:00 - 2:00Break for Lunch
2:00 - 2:15Integrality and Arithmetic Thurston's RigidityAlon Levy, ICERM11th Floor Lecture Hall
PDF
2:20 - 2:35Dynamical Units: Some Theorems... Some of Them TrueMichelle Manes, University of Hawaii11th Floor Lecture Hall
2:40 - 2:55Closing Remarks, Some of Which Will Be MathematicalJoe Silverman, Brown University11th Floor Lecture Hall
3:00 - 4:00Coffee/Tea Break11th Floor Collaborative Space
4:00 - 4:05ICERM Director Closing RemarksJill Pipher, Director, ICERM11th Floor Lecture Hall
4:05 - 5:00Special Colloquium-The Prevalence of ChaosXavier Buff, Universite de Toulouse III (Paul_Sabatier)11th Floor Lecture Hall
PDF
5:00 - 6:00End of Semester Reception 11th Floor Collaborative Space

FridayMay 4, 2012
TimeDescriptionSpeakerLocationAbstractsSlides
3:30 - 4:00Coffee/Tea Break

Complex and p-adic Dynamics (February 13-17, 2012)


Organizing Committee

Complex.pAdic

 

[Complex.pAdic: Image courtesy of S. Koch]

 

Description

This workshop will bring together researchers working in classical complex dynamics and in the newer area of p-adic (nonarchimedean) dynamics. It will promote interactions between the two groups by highlighting the similarities and differences between complex and p-adic dynamics. In particular, it will address Berkovich space, whose introduction has greatly enhanced the exchange of ideas between complex and p-adic dynamics.






Problems

Problem 1: Potential Theory and Invariant Measures. In the past decade, a number of researchers have developed a robust potential theory on Berkovich spaces and used it to construct an invariant measure associated to each rational map acting on Berkovich projective line, which is in some respects analog to the maximal entropy measure in complex dynamics. It is known to be ergodic and supported on the Julia set, but many fundamental questions remain.

Problem 2: Equidistribution Theorems. Various special sets of points (periodic, preperiodic, small height, Galois conjugates, etc.) have been shown to be equidistributed with respect to the maximal entropy measure in the Riemann sphere and/or to the analog measure on Berkovich projective line. These equidistribution results have had a number of important applications. A focus of the workshop will be to formulate and prove additional equidistribution results and give further applications.

Problem 3: Dynamics of Fatou Components. In 2000, Rivera-Letelier classified the possible dynamics on periodic components of the Berkovich-space Fatou set of a rational function, a classification that is analogous to the complex results of Fatou and Julia. Many questions remain open, including bounds for the number of periodic cycles of quasiperiodicity domains and the existence of wandering Fatou domains over the p-adic rationals.

Problem 4: Transversality in Complex Dynamics. Thurston's rigidity theorem gives a topological characterization of critically finite rational maps. Recent work of Epstein on an infinitesimal version of Thurston's theorem has an underlying arithmetic flavor. The workshop will provide an opportunity to explore these powerful new analytic/algebraic tools for studying both complex and p-adic dynamics.

Problem 5: The Local Connectivity Conjecture. This longstanding and fundamental conjecture asserts that the Mandelbrot set is locally connected. Its resolution would have major implications, including the density of hyperbolic maps in moduli space. Might there be tools from arithmetic dynamics which could be useful for studying this fundamental conjecture?


Global Arithmetic Dynamics (March 19-23, 2012)


Organizing Committee

Global Arithmetic

 

 

[Global Arithmetic: Image courtesy of M. Zieve]
Description

This workshop will examine global arithmetic dynamics from the perspectives of number theory, algebraic geometry, and model theory. It will introduce aspects of this topic to a larger audience, and clarify connections between different perspectives. In addition, there will be extensive discussion periods in which participants can collaborate on theoretical and computational aspects of the topic.









Problems

Problem 1: The Uniform Boundedness Conjecture. This fundamental conjecture in arithmetic dynamics says that for given positive integers D, n, and d with d>1, if K/Q is a number field of degree D and if f:Pn→Pn is a morphism of degree d defined over K, then the number of K-rational preperiodic points of f is bounded by a constant depending only on D, n, and d. It is a vast generalization of the Mazur-Merel theorem on uniform boundedness of torsion points on elliptic curves.

Problem 2: Dynamical Intersection Theorems. Two fundamental arithmetic results for abelian varieties are theorems of Raynaud and Faltings, orginally formulated as conjectures by Manin-Mumford and Mordell-Lang, respectively. There are a number of dynamical analogues of these conjectures, which roughly say that the orbit of a point should intersect a subvariety only finitely often unless the orbit of the entire subvariety has special properties. Only special cases of the dynamical conjectures have been proven. We expect these problems to be a major focus of the workshop.

Problem 3: Global Applications of Equidistribution Theorems. Let (xi) be a of sequence of algebraic points whose f-canonical heights go to zero. Under suitable hypotheses, it is known that the Galois conjugates of the xi are equidistributed with respect to the complex and Berkovich invariant measures. A focus of the program will be on global arithmetic applications of this and other similar equidistribution theorems.

Problem 4: Arithmetic Dynamics Over Function Fields. Many theorems in arithmetic geometry were first proven in the easier setting of function fields. A theme for the workshop will be the analogy for arithmetic dynamics between number fields and function fields.

Problem 5: Local-Global Problems. There are many local-global principles in arithmetic geometry, such as those related to the Hasse and Brauer-Manin obstructions. The workshop will explore analogous local-global principles for dynamical systems, including especially the distribution of orbits modulo primes and/or in p-adic or complex neighborhoods.

Moduli Spaces Associated to Dynamical Systems (April 16-20, 2012)


Organizing Committee
Description

Complex.pAdic

 

 

[Moduli Spaces: Image courtesy of A. Chéritat]

 

 

This workshop will bring together dynamicists, number theorists, and algebraic geometers to study the geometry and arithmetic of dynamical moduli spaces. The set Ratdn of rational degree d self-maps of Pn has a natural structure as an affine variety. The dynamical moduli space Mdn is the quotient of Ratdn by the conjugation action of the group PGLn+1. Problems to be investigated include the geometry of Mdn, the distribution of special maps such as post-critically finite maps in Mdn, dynamical modular curves associated to one-parameter families of maps with a marked point of period N, and degeneration of families of maps and the associated points on the boundary of moduli space. A tutorial session will be held the week before this workshop.

Problems

Problem 1: The Geometry of Mdn. It is known that M21 is isomorphic to the affine plane and that Md1 is a rational variety, but many fundamental questions remain. A major goal of the workshop will be to study the geometry of Mdn and the associated moduli spaces in which one adds level structure, for example by adding a marked point of period N or a marked finite orbit of order N. A motivating question is whether the resulting varieties are of general type if N is sufficiently large.

 

Problem 2: Distribution of Special Points. An example of the type of problem to be considered is the distribution of post-critically finite maps in the moduli space Md1 in both the complex and the p-adic topologies.

Problem 3: Dynamical Modular Curves. A one-parameter family of maps, for example fc(z)=z2+c, with marked points or orbits of order N, yields dynamical modular curves X0(N) and X1(N) that are analogous to classical modular curves. A good deal is known about the geometry of these curves, but little has been proven about their arithmetic except for some small values of N. The arithmetic properties of X0(N) and X1(N) are closely related to the uniform boundedness conjecture for the families that they parameterize.

Problem 4: The Boundary of Moduli Space. The boundary of a moduli space and a natural method for completing the space are of fundamental importance in understanding the underlying objects and their degenerations. Recent work of Kiwi has used Berkovich space dynamics over Laurent series fields to analyze degenerations of complex dynamical systems. A goal of the workshop is to exploit these non-archimedean methods to answer classical questions about the boundary of dynamical moduli spaces over the complex numbers.

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