Conservative Hénon stability boundary 2026-10-14
At the Hénon map has unit Jacobian determinant. The upper fixed point is linearly elliptic for , and its newborn two-cycle is elliptic for . These are neutral multiplier statements, not attraction. The endpoints have double multipliers and . Constant-area scaling also excludes a simple invariant closed curve enclosing positive area when and : invariance of its interior would require both and . Thus the elliptic stability boundary is a conservative degeneracy, not a generic dissipative Neimark-Sacker bifurcation. Arbitrary non-area-preserving perturbations can change this behavior even though generic fold and flip curves persist.
For the Hénon map with , fixed points exist at . Their multipliers satisfy . The Jury stability criterion gives asymptotic stability only for the upper branch, with and . The two-cycle has alternating values satisfying and . Its second-iterate trace is and determinant , so it is attracting for until . The fixed-point fold and first flip are nondegenerate away from endpoints and persist under small smooth perturbations.