Interactions of the Julia Set with Critical and (Un)Stable Sets in an Angle-Doubling Map on ℂ\{0}

Abstract

We study a nonanalytic perturbation of the complex quadratic family z ↦ z2 + c in the form of a two-dimensional noninvertible map that has been introduced by Bamón et al. [2006]. The map acts on the plane by opening up the critical point to a disk and wrapping the plane twice around it; points inside the disk have no preimages. The bounding critical circle and its images, together with the critical point and its preimages, form the so-called critical set. For parameters away from the complex quadratic family we define a generalized notion of the Julia set as the basin boundary of infinity. We are interested in how the Julia set changes when saddle points along with their stable and unstable sets appear as the perturbation is switched on. Advanced numerical techniques enable us to study the interactions of the Julia set with the critical set and the (un)stable sets of saddle points. We find the appearance and disappearance of chaotic attractors and dramatic changes in the topology of the Julia set; these bifurcations lead to three complicated types of Julia sets that are given by the closure of stable sets of saddle points of the map, namely, a Cantor bouquet and what we call a Cantor tangle and a Cantor cheese. We are able to illustrate how bifurcations of the nonanalytic map connect to those of the complex quadratic family by computing two-parameter bifurcation diagrams that reveal a self-similar bifurcation structure near the period-doubling route to chaos in the complex quadratic family.