Related papers: Thurston equivalence to a rational map is decidabl…
The key result in the present paper is a direct analogue of the celebrated Thurston's Theorem for marked Thurston maps with parabolic orbifolds. Combining this result with previously developed techniques, we prove that every Thurston map…
We study canonical decompositions of postcritically finite branched coverings of the 2-sphere, as defined by K. Pilgrim. We show that every hyperbolic cycle in the decomposition does not have a Thurston obstruction. It is thus Thurston…
We study canonical decompositions of postcritically finite branched coverings of the 2-sphere, as defined by K.~Pilgrim. We show that every hyperbolic cycle in the decomposition does not have a Thurston obstruction. It is thus Thurston…
In the early 1980's Thurston gave a topological characterization of rational maps whose critical points have finite iterated orbits (\cite{Th,DH1}): given a topological branched covering $F$ of the two sphere with finite critical orbits, if…
Topological mating is an combination that takes two same-degree polynomials and produces a new map with dynamics inherited from this initial pair. This process frequently yields a map that is Thurston-equivalent to a rational map $F$ on the…
This is the announcement, and the long summary, of a series of articles on the algorithmic study of Thurston maps. We describe branched coverings of the sphere in terms of group-theoretical objects called bisets, and develop a theory of…
In 1980s, Thurston established a topological characterization theorem for postcritically finite rational maps. In this paper, a decomposition theorem for a class of postcritically infinite branched covering termed `Herman map' is developed.…
In this paper, we prove that a postcritically finite rational map with non-empty Fatou set is Thurstion equivalent to an expanding Thurston map if and only if its Julia set is homeomorphic to the standard Sierpinski carpet
When is a topological branched self-cover of the sphere equivalent to a rational map on CP^1? William Thurston gave one answer in 1982, giving a negative criterion (an obstruction to a map being rational). We give a complementary, positive…
We find a constructive bound for the word length of a generating set for the centralizer of an element of the Mapping Class Group. As a consequence, we show that it is algorithmically decidable whether two postcritically finite branched…
Nearly Euclidean Thurston (NET) maps are described by simple diagrams which admit a natural notion of size. Given a size bound $C$, there are finitely many diagrams of size at most $C$. Given a NET map $F$ presented by a diagram of size at…
A study of real quadratic maps with real critical points, emphasizing the effective construction of critically finite maps with specified combinatorics. We discuss the behavior of the Thurston algorithm in obstructed cases, and in one…
Using Thurston's characterization of postcritically finite rational functions as branched coverings of the sphere to itself, we give a new method of constructing new conformal dynamical systems out of old ones. Let $f(z)$ be a rational map…
Thurston maps are branched self-coverings of the sphere whose critical points have finite forward orbits. We give combinatorial and algebraic characterizations of Thurston maps that are isotopic to expanding maps as "Levy-free" maps and as…
William Thurston (1946-2012) gave a combinatorial characterization for generic branched self-coverings of the two-sphere by associating a planar graph to them 10.48550/arXiv.1502.04760. By generalizing the notion of local balancing, the…
We investigate rational maps with period one and two cluster cycles. Given the definition of a cluster, we show that, in the case where the degree is $d$ and the cluster is fixed, the Thurston class of a rational map is fixed by the…
Recent work of Dylan Thurston gives a condition for when a post-critically finite branched self-cover of the sphere is equivalent to a rational map. We apply D. Thurston's positive criterion for rationality to give a new proof of a theorem…
We study rational self-maps of $\mathbb{P}^{1}$ whose critical points all have finite forward orbit. Thurston's rigidity theorem states that outside a single well-understood family, there are finitely many such maps over $\mathbb{C}$ of…
We provide a complete combinatorial classification of critically fixed anti-Thurston maps, i.e., orientation-reversing branched covers of the 2-sphere that fix every critical point. The first step in the proof, and an interesting result in…
Given a sub-hyperbolic semi-rational branched covering which is not CLH-equivalent a rational map, it must have the non-empty canonical Thurston obstruction. By using this canonical Thurston obstruction, we decompose this dynamical system…