English

Rational 6-cycles under iteration of quadratic polynomials

Number Theory 2009-12-07 v2

Abstract

We present a proof, which is conditional on the Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer Conjecture for a specific abelian variety, that there do not exist rational numbers x and c such that x has exact period N = 6 under the iteration x |-> x^2 + c. This extends earlier results by Morton for N = 4 and by Flynn, Poonen and Schaefer for N = 5.

Cite

@article{arxiv.0803.2836,
  title  = {Rational 6-cycles under iteration of quadratic polynomials},
  author = {Michael Stoll},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0803.2836},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

15 pages; this is the version that appeared in print

R2 v1 2026-06-21T10:22:50.045Z