English

Periods of rational maps modulo primes

Algebraic Geometry 2011-07-15 v1 Number Theory

Abstract

Let KK be a number field, let ϕK(t)\phi \in K(t) be a rational map of degree at least 2, and let α,βK\alpha, \beta \in K. We show that if α\alpha is not in the forward orbit of β\beta, then there is a positive proportion of primes p{\mathfrak p} of KK such that αmodp\alpha \mod {\mathfrak p} is not in the forward orbit of βmodp\beta \mod {\mathfrak p}. Moreover, we show that a similar result holds for several maps and several points. We also present heuristic and numerical evidence that a higher dimensional analog of this result is unlikely to be true if we replace α\alpha by a hypersurface, such as the ramification locus of a morphism ϕ:PnPn\phi : {\mathbb P}^{n} \to {\mathbb P}^{n}.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1107.2816,
  title  = {Periods of rational maps modulo primes},
  author = {Robert L. Benedetto and Dragos Ghioca and Benjamin Hutz and Pär Kurlberg and Thomas Scanlon and Thomas J. Tucker},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1107.2816},
  year   = {2011}
}
R2 v1 2026-06-21T18:36:48.963Z