Fatou set ($F(f)$)

The Fatou set of a rational map is the largest open subset of the Riemann sphere on which its iterates form a normal family. Its complement is the Julia set.

A Fatou component is a connected component of the Fatou set of a rational map. It is open. A rational map sends each Fatou component onto another one: complete invariance of the Fatou set puts it inside the inverse image of the target component; its maximal connectedness makes it one full inverse-image component. Restricting the globally proper sphere map to such a component is proper, since the inverse image of a compact subset intersected with the component is closed in a compact set. Its image is both open and closed in the connected target component, hence the whole target. A component is periodic if some iterate returns it to itself.

A Herman ring is a doubly connected periodic Fatou component on which the first-return map is holomorphically conjugate to an irrational rotation of an annulus $r<|w|<1$. Compactness of the circle of rotation factors proves normality of the return iterates, and the finitely many intervening iterates preserve normality. It is the annular rotation-domain counterpart of a Siegel disc.

A Siegel disc is a simply connected periodic Fatou component on which the first-return map is holomorphically conjugate to an irrational rotation of the unit disc: $h\circ R^p\circ h^{-1}(w)=e^{2\pi i\theta }w$, with $\theta \notin \mathbb{Q}$. Its return iterates are normal because any sequence of rotation factors has a convergent subsequence in the unit circle, giving locally uniform limits after conjugation. The iterates generally do not converge to a constant. This is a rotation domain, illustrating stability without attraction.

Suppose a Fatou component $U$ satisfies $R(U)\subseteq U$, and some $a\in U$ has $R^{-1}(a)\subseteq U$. Every connected component of $R^{-1}(U)$ maps properly and surjectively to $U$: properness follows by intersecting compact preimages with the relatively closed component; openness and closedness then give surjectivity. Such a component must meet the entire fiber over $a$, which lies in $U$. Since $U$ is itself one inverse-image component, there can be no other. Hence $R^{-1}(U)=U$ and $R(U)=U$, proving complete invariance.

A periodic Fatou component of a rational map is an immediate attracting basin, an immediate parabolic basin, a Siegel disc, or a Herman ring. Attracting and parabolic basins capture critical orbits, while the boundaries of rotation domains lie in the closure of the postcritical set.

Every immediate basin of an attracting fixed point of a rational map contains a critical point. Otherwise the map on the basin would be an unbranched covering; lifting it to the unit disc would give an automorphism fixing a point, contradicting strict contraction at the attracting fixed point.

The postcritical set is the closure of the union of the forward orbits of all critical values.

A parabolic basin consists of Fatou components whose iterates approach a parabolic periodic orbit.

A parabolic basin consists of points whose iterates converge to a parabolic cycle along a specified attracting direction. Each connected basin component lies in the Fatou set, and its boundary lies in the Julia set.

For $P(z)=z-z^2$, the disc $\Delta =\{|z-1/2|<1/2\}$ corresponds under $w=1/z$ to $\Re w>1$. The transformed map is $T(w)=w+1+1/(w-1)$, so $\Re T(w)>\Re w+1$. Thus $P(\Delta )\subseteq \Delta$ and $|P^n(z)|<1/(n+1)$ there. The Fatou component $U$ containing the disc has $P^n\to 0$ locally uniformly by normality and the identity theorem. It is forward invariant. The point $1/4$ in the disc has the entire fiber $\{1/2\}$, so the Fatou component containing an entire fiber is completely invariant criterion gives $P^{-1}(U)=U$. Zero itself is a Julia point: a normal subsequential limit near zero would be zero by the disc limit, but every iterate has derivative one at zero, contradicting derivative convergence.

Every Fatou component of a rational map of degree at least two is eventually periodic. Thus the periodic-component classification accounts for the entire Fatou set.