Speaker
Hans Henrik Rugh
(Université de Paris-Sud, Orsay)
Description
The topological entropy $\htop$ of a continuous piecewise monotone interval map measures the exponential growth in the number of
monotonicity intervals for iteratesof the map.
Milnor and Thurston showed that $\exp(-\htop)$ is the smallest zero of an analytic function, now coined the Milnor-Thurston determinant,
that keeps track of relative positions of forward orbits of critical points. On the other hand $\exp(\htop)$ equals the spectral radius of a
Ruelle transfer operator $L$, associated with the map. Iterates of $L$ keep track of inverse orbits of the map.
For no obvious reason, a Fredholm determinant for the transfer operator has not only the same leading zero as the
M-T determinant but all peripheral (those lying in the unit disk) zeros are the same.
In the talk I will show that on a suitable function space, the dual of the Ruelle transfer operator has a
regularized determinant, identical to the Milnor-Thurston determinant, hereby providing a natural explanation
for the above puzzle. This work was inspired by a collaboration with Tan Lei in 2014.
Primary author
Hans Henrik Rugh
(Université de Paris-Sud, Orsay)
