A turning point analysis of the ergodic dynamics of iterative maps

Abstract

The dynamics of one dimensional iterative maps in the regime of fully developed chaos is studied in detail. Motivated by the observation of dynamical structures around the unstable fixed point we introduce the geometrical concept of a turning point which represents a local minimum or maximum of the trajectory. Following we investigate the highly organized and structured distribution of turning points. The turning point dynamics is discussed and the corresponding turning point map which possesses an appealing asymptotic scaling property is investigated. Strong correlations are shown to exist for the turning point trajectories which contain the information of the fixed points as well as the stability coefficients of the dynamical system. For the more specialized case of symmetric maps which possess a symmetric density we derive universal statistical properties of the corresponding turning point dynamics. Using the turning point concept we finally develop a method for the analysis of (one dimensional) time series.