English

Functional analysis approach to the Collatz conjecture

Functional Analysis 2022-06-02 v9 Dynamical Systems Number Theory

Abstract

We investigate the problems related to the Collatz map TT from the point of view of functional analysis. We associate with TT certain linear operator T\mathcal{T} and show that cycles and (hypothetical) diverging trajectory (generated by TT) correspond to certain classes of fixed points of operator T\mathcal{T}. Furthermore, we demonstrate connection between dynamical properties of operator T\mathcal{T} and map TT. We prove that absence of nontrivial cycles of TT leads to hypercyclicity of operator T\mathcal{T}. In the second part we show that the index of operator IdTL(H2(D))Id-\mathcal{T}\in\mathcal{L}(H^2(D)) gives upper estimate on the number of cycles of TT. For the proof we consider the adjoint operator F=T\mathcal{F}=\mathcal{T}^* F:gg(z2)+z133(g(z23)+e2πi3g(z23e2πi3)+e4πi3g(z23e4πi3)), \mathcal{F}: g\to g(z^2)+\frac{z^{-\frac{1}{3}}}{3}\left(g(z^{\frac{2}{3}})+e^{\frac{2\pi i}{3}}g(z^{\frac{2}{3}}e^{\frac{2\pi i}{3}})+e^{\frac{4\pi i}{3}}g(z^{\frac{2}{3}}e^{\frac{4\pi i}{3}})\right), first introduced by Berg, Meinardus in \cite{BM1994}, and show it does not have non-trivial fixed points in H2(D)H^2(D). Moreover, we calculate resolvent of operator F\mathcal{F} and as an application deduce equation for the characteristic function of total stopping time σ\sigma_{\infty}. Furthermore, we construct an invariant measure for T\mathcal{T} in a slightly different setup, and investigate how the operator T\mathcal{T} acts on generalized arithmetic progressions.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2106.11859,
  title  = {Functional analysis approach to the Collatz conjecture},
  author = {Mikhail Neklyudov},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2106.11859},
  year   = {2022}
}

Comments

15 pages, introduction and section $4$ had been expanded and rewritten to connect with results of L. Berg and G. Meinardus

R2 v1 2026-06-24T03:28:29.148Z