Inverse branch Created 2026-10-25 Updated 2026-11-05
An inverse branch of a function on a set is an inverse function of a bijective restriction . Thus for every , and for every .
Different restrictions can give different branches on the same . For , the restrictions to and give and on . Their function compositions describe successive choices of preimages, as in the itinerary cylinders of an interval map.
For the real logistic map with , let be its two inverse branches from to the disjoint subintervals on which . With the homeomorphism , these become
Direct differentiation gives
since . Thus length- itinerary cylinders have angular diameter at most , and ordinary diameter at most because . The nested interval theorem then gives exactly one point for each infinite itinerary. This proves the coding by the one-sided full shift even when the ordinary-coordinate inverse branches are not contractions.
The event is . Since has affine branches of slope magnitude , this preimage is, up to endpoints, a disjoint union of intervals of length and has measure .
More generally, for every binary word , its itinerary cylinder
is, up to finitely many endpoints, one monotonicity interval of and has measure . Therefore
so the are independent and identically distributed random variables, each with the Bernoulli distribution of parameter .
The finite itinerary cylinders have diameters at most . Their endpoints form a dense set, so their unions generate the Borel sigma-algebra after completion by null sets. Thus
in the standard probability-space convention that σ-algebras are identified modulo null sets.
There is a small literal endpoint defect in the uncompleted formulation of the question: , , and all have the all-zero itinerary, so cannot separate these Borel singletons. Consequently the displayed equality is false as an equality of raw Borel σ-algebras with the stated open interval, but it is true after completion and modulo null sets, which is the version used in the ergodicity argument.
The set consists precisely of points whose first positions all lie in . Hence
Deleting the first position preserves this condition, proving . For the reverse inclusion, if , take . Then and for every . Thus and . In fact both inverse branches give preimages in . Therefore
which proves full invariance, not merely forward invariance.
For any infinite symbolic sequence , the itinerary cylinders are nonempty compact nested intervals. The nested interval theorem gives at least one point in their intersection. Every has a unique itinerary because . To justify that the itinerary also determines a unique point, it suffices to show the interval lengths shrink. The fact that logistic inverse branches contract in an angular coordinate works for every ; a direct claim that in the original coordinate would fail for some just above four.
Use the homeomorphism of . The transformed inverse branches are
Their derivatives satisfy
The inequality follows by squaring and using . Thus every length- transformed itinerary cylinder has length at most . Since , its original interval has length at most and shrinks to a point. This gives the claimed one-to-one identification with the one-sided full shift.
Finally part (ii) gives
Thus acts by the left shift. The identification is a topological conjugacy: matching long prefixes forces closeness by the shrinking estimate, while distinct finite itinerary cylinders are disjoint compact sets and so their inverse coding is continuous. In particular need not be one-to-one on , just as a one-sided left shift has two possible first symbols before any given tail.
Write . Because , taking the image under the same function composition gives
This uses preservation of set inclusion by every function, so decreasing inverse branches cause no difficulty. Since , cancellation of the first inverse branch gives the equality of images
These compact intervals are itinerary cylinders: their symbols record successive positions under iteration of a map. In particular,
Conversely these three memberships allow successive substitution of the appropriate inverse branches, and therefore characterize exactly.