Dynamics on the unit disk: short geodesics and simple cycles (Q1959749)

Let \(d > 1\) be an integer, and let \({\mathcal B}_{d}\) denote the set of all functions \(f\) of the form \[ f(z) = z \prod_{j=1}^{d-1} \bigg( \frac {z - a_{j}} {1 - \bar{z}_{j} z} \bigg). \] For \(f \in {\mathcal B}_{d}\), \(f\) is a proper holomorphic map of the unit disc \(\Delta\) onto itself, \(f\) sends the unit circle \(S^{1}\) onto itself, \(f|S^{1}\) is measure-preserving, and \(|f'(z)| > 1\) for \(z \in S^{1}\). Let \(p_{d}(z) = z^{d}\), let \(C\) be a periodic cycle for \(p_{d}\) on \(S^{1}\), and let \(|C|\) be the number of points in \(C\). Define the length of a cycle \(C\) for \(f\) by \[ L(C,f) = \log{|(f^{q})'(z)|}, \] with \(q = |C|\) and \(\phi_{f}(z) \in C\), where \(\phi_{f}:S^{1} \to S^{1}\) is a unique \textit{marking} homeomorphism that varies continuously with \(f\), conjugates \(f\) to \(p_{d}\), and satisfies \(\phi_{p_{d}}(z) = z\). The degree of a cycle \(C\) is the least positive integer \(e\) such that \(p_{d}|C\) extends to a covering map of \(S^{1}\) of degree \(e\). We say that \(C\) is \textit{simple} if the degree of \(C\) is 1, or equivalently, if \(p_{d}|C\) preserves cyclic order. If \(X \subset S^{1}\) and \(f:X \to X\), we say that \(f\) is \textit{renormalizable} if there is a non--trivial partition of \(X\) into disjoint subsets \(X_{1}, X_{2}, \dots, X_{n}\) such that \(f(X_{i}) \subset X_{i}\) and \(X_{i} \subset Q_{i}, \;1 \leq i \leq n\), where the sets \(Q_{i}\) are mutually disjoint connected open subsets of \(S^{1}\). We say that a collection of degree \(d\) cycles \(C_{1}, C_{2}, \dots, C_{m}\) is \textit{binding} if both the degree of \(p_{d}|\big(\bigcup C_{i}\big)\) is \(d\) and \(p_{d}\big|(\bigcup C_{i}\big)\) is not renormalizable. The author proves a number of results involving these ideas, and the following characterize the main results. Any cycle \(C\) with \(L(C,f) < \log{2}\) is simple, all such cycles \(C_{i}\) have the same rotation number, and \(p_{d}|\big(\bigcup C_{i} \big)\) preserves the cyclic ordering of \(\bigcup C_{i}\). Every \(f \in {\mathcal B}_{d}\) has a simple cycle \(C\) for which \(L(C,f) = O(d)\). If \(\{C_{i}: 1 \leq i \leq n\}\) is a binding collection of cycles, then for each \(M > 0\) the set of \(f \in {\mathcal B}_{d}\) with \(\sum_{i=1}^{n} L(C_{i},f) \leq M\) has compact closure in the moduli space of all rational maps of degree \(d\). The closure \(E\) in \(S^{1}\) of the simple cycles for a given \(f \in {\mathcal B}_{d}\) has Hausdorff dimension zero.