Following Brown [1992, 1993] we study maps of the real line into itself obtained from the modified Chua equations. We fix our attention on a one-parameter family of such maps, which seems to be typical. For a large range of parameters, invariant intervals exist. In such an invariant interval, the map is piecewise continuous, with most of pieces of continuity mapped in a monotone way onto the whole interval. However, on the central piece there is a critical point. This allows us to find sometimes a smaller invariant interval on which the map is unimodal. In such a way, we get one-parameter families of smooth unimodal maps, very similar to the well-known family of logistic maps x ↦ ax(1−x). We study more closely one of those and show that these maps have negative Schwarzian derivative. This implies the existence of at most one attracting periodic orbit. Moreover, there is a set of parameters of positive measure for which chaos occurs.
On the coefficient problem for the Schwarzian derivative
