Dynamics of a family of transcendental meromorphic functions having rational Schwarzian derivative (Q865352)

Let \(f\) be a transcendental meromorphic function, and denote by \(f^n\) the \(n\)-th iterate of \(f\). The Fatou set \(F(f)\) is the maximal open set in which all iterates \(f^n\) are defined and form a normal family in the sense of Montel, while the complement of \(F(f)\) in \(\widehat{\mathbb C}\) is the Julia set \(J(f)\). Note that an attracting fixed point \(\zeta\) of \(f\) lies in \(F(f)\), and the basin of attraction of \(\zeta\) is denoted by \(A(\zeta) = \{\, z \in \mathbb{C} : f^n(z) \to \zeta \text{ as } n\to\infty \,\}\). An important role in studying the dynamics of \((f^n)\) is played by the set of singular values of \(f\) which is the set of points \(w \in \mathbb C\) such that there is no neighborhood of \(w\) where a holomorphic inverse function of \(f\) exists. Note that then \(w\) is a critical value or an asymptotic value of \(f\). If the set of singular values of \(f\) is finite, then \(f\) is called critically finite. In this paper, the authors consider a one parameter family \(\mathcal{K}\) consisting of the functions \(f_\lambda\), \(\lambda>0\) with \(f_\lambda(z)=\lambda f(z)\), where \(f\) belongs to a special class \(\mathcal{F}\) of transcendental meromorphic functions of finite order. An example of a function in \(\mathcal{F}\) is \(f(z)=\frac{z}{z+4}\,e^z\). In particular, every function in \(\mathcal{F}\) has a simple zero at \(z=0\) but no others, and a simple pole at \(z=\alpha<1\) but no others. Furthermore, \(f\) is critically finite, has only real critical values, and \(0\) is the only asymptotic value. Finally, the Schwarzian derivative of \(f\) is a rational function. Now, let \(\phi \colon \mathbb{R} \to \mathbb{R}\) be defined by \(\phi(x)=\frac{x}{f(x)}\) for \(x \neq 0\) and \(\phi(0)=\lim_{x \to 0}{\frac{x}{f(x)}}\). Finally, let \(\lambda^*=\phi(0)\) and \(\lambda^{**}=\phi(\tilde{x})\), where \(\tilde{x}\) is the unique solution of \(\phi'(x)=0\). These two parameters play an important role for the dynamics of \((f^n)\). With these notations the main results can be stated as follows. (1) If \(0<\lambda<\lambda^*\), then \(0\) is an attracting fixed point of \(f_\lambda \in \mathcal{K}\), and \(f_\lambda\) has two repelling fixed points \(r_{1,\lambda} \in (\alpha,x')\) and \(r_{2,\lambda} \in (0,\infty)\), where \(x'\) is a non-zero solution of \(\lambda^*=\phi(x)\). The Julia set of \(f_\lambda\) is given by \(J(f_\lambda) = \widehat{\mathbb{C}} \setminus A(0)\). (2) If \(\lambda^*<\lambda<\lambda^{**}\), then \(f_\lambda \in \mathcal{K}\) has an attracting fixed point \(a_\lambda \in (\tilde{x},0)\), and \(f_\lambda\) has two repelling fixed points \(r_\lambda \in (x',\tilde{x})\) and \(0\). The Julia set of \(f_\lambda\) is given by \(J(f_\lambda) = \widehat{\mathbb{C}} \setminus A(a_\lambda)\). (3) If \(\lambda=\lambda^*\) or \(\lambda=\lambda^{**}\), then \(f_\lambda \in \mathcal{K}\) has a rationally indifferent fixed point, namely \(0\) in the first and \(\tilde{x}\) in the second case (where \(0\) is a repelling fixed point of \(f_\lambda\)). In both cases, the Fatou set \(F(f_\lambda)\) contains a parabolic domain. (4) If \(\lambda>\lambda^{**}\), then \(0\) is a repelling fixed point of \(f_\lambda \in \mathcal{K}\), and the Julia set of \(f_\lambda\) is given by \(J(f_\lambda) = \widehat{\mathbb{C}}\).