On periodic points under the iteration of additive polynomials (Q1424382)

In the paper under consideration, the dynamical system associated with an additive polynomial \(f(X)\) over a field \(F\) of positive characteristic \(p\) is investigated. Let \(q\) be a power of \(p\) and \[ f(X) = \sum c_i X^{q^i} \quad (0 \leq i \leq r,\: c_r \not= 0, \: r :=\text{rank}\,f). \] The iteration of \(f\) may be visualized by a directed graph Gr\((f,F)\) with the elements of \(F\) as vertices, and the problem arises to describe the set PrePer\((f,F)\) of (eventually) periodic points. Then quite generally, the following holds (Proposition 1.1): If \(F\) has positive transcendence degree over \({\mathbb F}_p\) and \(f(X)\) has positive rank, then Gr\((f,F)\) has infinitely many non-periodic components. Most interesting are those \(f\) that arise in an arithmetical context, e.g., from Drinfeld modules. The author proves (Theorem 2.3): Fix \(q\) and let \(F\) be a function field of one variable over \(\overline{\mathbb F}_q\). Then there is an effective bound \(B\), depending only on \(q\) and the gonality \(\gamma\) of \(F\), such that \[ \# \text{PrePer}(f,F) \leq B \text{ for all }f(X) = aX^q+bX \in F[X] \text{ with } b \not\in {\overline{\mathbb F}}_q; \] along with some more precise and refined results in special cases of the above. A typical result in the rank-two case is Theorem 3.2: Let \(c\) be transcendental over \({\mathbb F}_q\), and let \(F\) be a function field over \({\overline{\mathbb F}_q(c)}\). If \(f(X) = aX^{q^2}+bX^q+cX \in F[X]\) such that \(j = b^{q+1}/a\) is transcendental over \({\mathbb F}_q(c)\), then \[ \#\text{PrePer}(f,F) \leq (\gamma^2(q^2+1)(q+1))^{q/(q-1)}, \] where \(\gamma\) is the gonality of \(F\).