English

Iterations of Quadratic Polynomials over Finite Fields

Number Theory 2012-01-26 v2

Abstract

Given a map f:Z-->Z and an initial argument alpha, we can iterate the map to get a finite set of iterates modulo a prime p. In particular, for a quadratic map f(z)=z^2 +c, c constant, work by Pollard suggests that this set should have length on the order of p^(1/2). We give a heuristic argument that suggests that the statistical properties of this set might be very similar to the Birthday Problem random variable X_n, for an n=p day year, and offer considerable experimental evidence that the limiting distribution of these set lengths, divided by p^(1/2), for p\leq x as x goes to infinity, converges to the limiting distribution of X_n/n^(1/2), as n goes to infinity.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1201.4528,
  title  = {Iterations of Quadratic Polynomials over Finite Fields},
  author = {William Worden},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1201.4528},
  year   = {2012}
}

Comments

14 pages, 6 figures; references updated, added. Revised to reflect new and updated references [2, 10]

R2 v1 2026-06-21T20:08:02.409Z