The Artin-Mazur zeta function for interval maps

Abstract

In this work we study the Artin-Mazur zeta function for piecewise monotone functions acting on a compact interval of real numbers. In the case of unimodal maps, Milnor and Thurston gave a characterization for the rationality of the Artin-Mazur zeta function in terms of the orbit of the unique turning point. We show that for multimodal maps, the previous characterization does not hold.