Dynamics of transcendental Hénon maps (Q1741839)

The dynamics of transcendental functions in the complex plane has been intensively investigated. In particular, much is known about the description of the Fatou components. In contrast, very little is known about the dynamics of the transcendental automorphisms of \(\mathbb{C}^2\), although the results in [\textit{J. E. Fornæss} and \textit{N. Sibony}, Math. Ann. 311, No. 1, 27--40 (1998; Zbl 0931.37016)] and in [\textit{H. Peters} et al., Int. J. Math. 19, No. 7, 801--810 (2008; Zbl 1149.37027)] show holomorphic automorphisms of \(\mathbb{C}^2\) with interesting dynamics. Polynomial automorphisms of \(\mathbb{C}^2\) have received a large amount of attention. A result of Friedland and Milnor implies that any polynomial automorphism of \(\mathbb{C}^2\) with non-trivial dynamical behavior is conjugate to a finite composition of polynomial Hénon maps. A polynomial Hénon map is a map \(H\colon\mathbb{C}^2\to \mathbb{C}^2\) of the form \[ H(z,w)=(f(z)-\delta w,z) \] where \(f\) is a polynomial of degree at least \(2\). Dynamics of polynomial Hénon maps have been extensively studied, see [\textit{E. Bedford} and \textit{J. Smillie}, Invent. Math. 103, No. 1, 69--99 (1991; Zbl 0721.58037); J. Am. Math. Soc. 4, No. 4, 657--679 (1991; Zbl 0744.58068); Math. Ann. 294, No. 3, 395--420 (1992; Zbl 0765.58013)]. Transcendental Hénon maps are the maps of the same form as above where \(f\) is a transcendental entire function in \(\mathbb{C}\). They seem to be a natural class of holomorphic automorphisms of \(\mathbb{C}^2\) with non-trivial dynamics, restrictive enough to allow for a clear description of its dynamics, but large enough to display new interesting dynamical behaviour not appearing in the polynomial Hénon case. The goal of the paper under review is to describe the dynamics of transcendental Hénon maps, combining ideas coming from the study of transcendental dynamics in the complex plane and from the study of polynomial Hénon maps in \(\mathbb{C}^2\). In Sections 2 and 3 the authors deal with the dynamics of general transcendental maps in \(\mathbb{C}^2\). They show that, for a transcendental Hénon map \(F\), the set of fixed points of \(F^{\circ 2}\) is discrete and \(F\) admits infinitely many saddle points (if \(\delta\ne 1\)) of period 1 or 2, which implies that the Julia set is not empty. They also prove that there is no irreducible invariant algebraic curve (the same was proved by Bedford and Smillie [Zbl 0721.58037]). Using a suitable definition of Fatou sets in this setting, the authors present in Section 4 the following classification theorem for \textit{recurrent Fatou components}, that is, Fatou components admitting an orbit accumulating to an interior point, for holomorphic automorphisms of \(\mathbb{C}^2\) with constant Jacobian. Invariant recurrent components of polynomial Hénon maps were discussed in [Zbl 0744.58068]. Theorem. Let \(F\) be a holomorphic automorphism of \(\mathbb{C}^2\) with constant Jacobian \(\delta\) and let \(\Omega\) be an invariant recurrent Fatou component for \(F\). Then there exists a holomorphic retraction \(\rho\) from \(\Omega\) to a closed complex submanifold \(\Sigma\subset\Omega\), called the \textit{limit manifold}, such that for all limit maps \(h\) there exists an automorphism \(\eta\) of \(\Sigma\) such that \(h = \eta \circ \rho\). Every orbit converges to \(\Sigma\), and \(F|_\Sigma : \Sigma \to \Sigma\) is an automorphism. Moreover, \begin{itemize} \item If \(\dim \Sigma = 0\), then \(\Omega\) is the basin of an attracting fixed point, and is biholomorphically equivalent to \(\mathbb{C}^2\). \item If \(\dim \Sigma = 1\), either \(\Sigma\) is biholomorphic to a circular domain \(A\), and there exists a biholomorphism from \(\Omega\) to \(A \times\mathbb{C}\) which conjugates the map \(F\) to \[ (z,w)\mapsto \left(e^{i\theta} z, \frac{\delta}{e^{i\theta} }w\right) \] where \(\theta\) is irrational, or there exists \(j \in \mathbb{N}\) such that \(F^{\circ j}|_\Sigma = id\), and there exists a biholomorphism from \(\Omega\) to \(\Sigma \times\mathbb{C}\) which conjugates the map \(F^{\circ j}\) to \[ (z,w)\mapsto (z,\delta^j w). \] \item \(\dim \Sigma = 2\) if and only if \(|\delta| = 1\). In this case there exists a sequence of iterates converging to the identity on \(\Omega\). \end{itemize} By a \textit{circular domain} the authors mean either the disk, the punctured disk, an annulus, the complex plane or the punctured plane. In Section 5, the authors construct examples of \textit{Baker domains}, that is a transcendental Hénon map with a Fatou component on which the orbits converge to a point at the line at infinity, which is (in an appropriate sense) an essential singularity. The final part of the paper is devoted to \textit{wandering domains}. Section 6 is devoted to the construction of a wandering domain, biholomorphic to \(\mathbb{C}^2\), which is escaping: all orbits converge to the point \([1 : 1 : 0]\) at infinity. Finally, in Section 7 the authors construct a transcendental Hénon map \(F\) with a wandering domain, biholomorphic to \(\mathbb{C}^2\), which is oscillating, that is, it contains points whose orbits have both bounded subsequences and subsequences which converge to infinity.