English

An Explicit Near-Conjugacy Between the Collatz Map and a Circle Rotation

General Mathematics 2026-01-09 v1

Abstract

We introduce an explicit logarithmic transformation T(x)={log6(x+1/5)}T(x) = \{\log_6(x + 1/5)\} under which the Collatz map becomes a rigid circle rotation by the irrational angle α=log63\alpha = \log_6 3, perturbed by a uniformly bounded error term. We prove that for all positive integers xx, T(C(x))=T(x)+α+ε(x)(mod1)T(C(x)) = T(x) + \alpha + \varepsilon(x) \pmod{1}, where ε(x)0.2749|\varepsilon(x)| \le 0.2749 and ε(x)=O(1/x)\varepsilon(x) = O(1/x) as xx \to \infty. We derive the transformation from an exact functional equation linking the even and odd branches of the Collatz map, explain the arithmetic origin of the parameters 66 and 1/51/5, and analyse the structure of the resulting error term. Extensive numerical computations up to 101210^{12} confirm the sharpness of the bounds and show that cumulative errors remain uniformly bounded along all tested trajectories. While this near-conjugacy does not by itself resolve the Collatz conjecture, it provides a concrete and quantitative dynamical framework that clarifies the geometric structure underlying the Collatz iteration and may be useful in further analytical or experimental investigations of Collatz-type systems.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2601.04289,
  title  = {An Explicit Near-Conjugacy Between the Collatz Map and a Circle Rotation},
  author = {Barmak Honarvar Shakibaei Asli},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2601.04289},
  year   = {2026}
}