Forward triplets and topological entropy on trees (Q2070877)

This paper deals with combinatorial dynamics and entropy of continuous maps \(f\colon T\to T\) defined from a tree \(T\) into itself. The authors obtain a new and simple criterion on positive topological entropy for tree maps. They show that a tree map \(f\) has positive topological entropy if and only if there exists \(k\geq 1\) such that \(f^k\) has a forward triplet, that is, there exists a subset \(\{a,b,c\}\) of a periodic orbit of \(f^k\) such that \(f^k(a)=b\), \(f^k(b)=c\) and \(b\) belongs to the interior of the unique interval connecting \(a\) and \(c\). They also obtain entropy estimations of some certain periodic patterns. To be more precise, they prove that for an \(n\)-periodic simplicial pattern \(\mathcal{P}\) there holds \(h(\mathcal{P})=0\) if and only if \(\mathcal{P}\) is fully rotational; for an \(n\)-periodic pattern \(\mathcal{P}\), if it is not fully rotational, then \(h(\mathcal{P})\geq \log (\lambda_n)\), where \[ h(\mathcal{P}) = \{h_{\mathrm{top}}(f)\colon (T,P,f) \text { is a model of }\mathcal{P} \} \] and \(\lambda_n\) is the unique real root in \((1,\infty)\) of the polynomial \(x^n-2x-1\). For \(n\geq 3\), let \(\mathcal{Q}_n\) be the \(n\)-periodic pattern whose discrete components are \(\{1,n\}\) and \(\{1,2,\dotsc,n-1\}\). Then the pattern \(\mathcal{Q}_n\) is not fully rotational and \(h(\mathcal{Q}_n)=\log(\lambda_n)\). This shows that the lower bound of the entropy for \(n\)-periodic patterns which are not fully rotational is optimal and is attained by \(\mathcal{Q}_n\).