The boundary of chaos for piecewise smooth maps and the boundary of positive Hausdorff dimension for survivor sets of open maps

Abstract

We describe the boundary of chaos separating regions of parameter space with positive topological entropy from those with zero topological entropy for a class of piecewise smooth maps. This coincides with the boundary of positive Hausdorff dimension for the survivor sets of a class of open maps. There are precisely two types of codimension one transitions across the boundaries. One of these involves heteroclinic connections, and in this case there is a finite number of periodic orbits at the transition point. The other involves an infinite cascade of bifurcations creating infinitely many periodic orbits on the boundary in a sequence called the anharmonic cascade.