Tips of tongues in the double standard family*

We answer a question raised by Misiurewicz and Rodrigues concerning the family of degree two circle maps F λ : R / Z → R / Z defined by F λ ( x ) ≔ 2 x + a + b π sin ( 2 π x ) with λ ≔ ( a , b ) ∈ R / Z × ( 0 , 1 ) . We prove that if F λ ◦ n − i d has a zero of multiplicity three in R / Z , then there is a system of local coordinates ( α , β ) : W → R 2 defined in a neighborhood W of λ, such that α(λ) = β(λ) = 0 and F μ ◦ n − i d has a multiple zero with μ ∈ W if and only if β 3(μ) = α 2(μ). This shows that the tips of tongues are regular cusps.

Quasisymmetric orbit-flexibility of multicritical circle maps

Two given orbits of a minimal circle homeomorphism f are said to be geometrically equivalent if there exists a quasisymmetric circle homeomorphism identifying both orbits and commuting with f. By a well-known theorem due to Herman and Yoccoz, if f is a smooth diffeomorphism with Diophantine rotation number, then any two orbits are geometrically equivalent. It follows from the a priori bounds of Herman and Świątek, that the same holds if f is a critical circle map with rotation number of bounded type. By contrast, we prove in the present paper that if f is a critical circle map whose rotation number belongs to a certain full Lebesgue measure set in $(0,1)$ , then the number of equivalence classes is uncountable (Theorem 1.1). The proof of this result relies on the ergodicity of a two-dimensional skew product over the Gauss map. As a by-product of our techniques, we construct topological conjugacies between multicritical circle maps which are not quasisymmetric, and we show that this phenomenon is abundant, both from the topological and measure-theoretical viewpoints (Theorems 1.6 and 1.8).

Asymptotic distribution of hitting times for critical maps of the circle

It is well known that the renormalization group transformation $\mathcal{R}$ has a unique fixed point $f_{cr}$ in the space of critical $C^{3}$-circle homeomorphisms with one cubic critical point $x_{cr}$ and the golden mean rotation number $\overline{\rho}:=\frac{\sqrt{5}-1}{2}.$ Denote by $Cr(\overline{\rho})$ the set of all critical circle maps $C^{1}$-conjugated to $f_{cr}.$ Let $f\in Cr(\overline{\rho})$ and let $\mu:=\mu_{f}$ be the unique probability invariant measure of $f.$ Fix $\theta \in(0,1).$ For each $n\geq1$ define $c_{n}:=c_{n}(\theta)$ such that $\mu([x_{cr},c_{n}])=\theta\cdot\mu([x_{cr},f^{q_{n}}(x_{cr})]),$ where $q_{n}$ is the first return time of the linear rotation $f_{\overline{\rho}}.$ We study convergence in law of rescaled point process of time hitting. We show that the limit distribution is singular w.r.t. the Lebesgue measure.

Creation of discontinuities in circle maps

Circle maps frequently arise in mathematical models of physical or biological systems. Motivated by Cherry flows and ‘threshold’ systems such as integrate and fire neuronal models, models of cardiac arrhythmias, and models of sleep/wake regulation, we consider how structural transitions in circle maps occur. In particular, we describe how maps evolve near the creation of a discontinuity. We show that the natural way to create discontinuities in the maps associated with both threshold systems and Cherry flows results in a singularity in the derivative of the map as the discontinuity is approached from either one or both sides. For the threshold systems, the associated maps have square root singularities and we analyse the generic properties of such maps with gaps, showing how border collisions and saddle-node bifurcations are interspersed. This highlights how the Arnold tongue picture for tongues bordered by saddle-node bifurcations is amended once gaps are present. We also show that a loss of injectivity naturally results in the creation of multiple gaps giving rise to a novel codimension two bifurcation.

A Note on the Conjugacy Between Two Critical Circle Maps

We study a conjugacy between two critical circle homeomorphisms with irrational rotation number. Let fi, i = 1, 2 be a C3 circle homeomorphisms with critical point x(i) cr of the order 2mi + 1. We prove that if 2m1 + 1 ̸= 2m2 + 1, then conjugating between f1 and f2 is a singular function. Keywords: circle homeomorphism, critical point, conjugating map, rotation number, singular function