A Phase Transition for Circle Maps with a Flat Spot and Different Critical Exponents

Abstract

We study circle maps with a flat interval where the critical exponents at the two boundary points of the flat spot might be different. The space of such systems is partitioned in two connected parts whose common boundary only depends on the critical exponents. At this boundary there is a phase transition in the geometry of the system. Differently from the previous approaches, this is achieved by studying the asymptotical behavior of the renormalization operator.