A fixed point satisfies . A perturbation obeys , where the periodic-orbit multiplier is . It is linearly attracting for and repelling for ; at nonlinear terms decide Lyapunov stability. A crossing through can produce a saddle-node, transcritical or pitchfork bifurcation, depending on the mathematical model parameter dependence and symmetry. A crossing through generically gives a period-doubling bifurcation. A real one-dimensional function cannot have the complex conjugate pair needed for a Neimark–Sacker bifurcation.
For a genuine period-two orbit, study the return map at either point. By the chain rule its periodic-orbit multiplier is
Its modulus determines linear stability by the same criterion, now per two iterates.
For the real quadratic iteration map, the fixed-point equation gives
The derivative is . The lower branch is repelling whenever . The upper branch satisfies exactly for
At the two fixed points merge in a saddle-node bifurcation. With at that mathematical model parameter, , so the point attracts from the right and is repelling from the left. At , has periodic-orbit multiplier and undergoes a period-doubling bifurcation. At the threshold itself and the two-step return is , proving weak asymptotic stability there despite the inconclusive linear test.
Factor the second-iterate equation:
Removing the fixed-point factor yields the periodic orbit points
They are distinct and exchanged by exactly when ; at equality they coincide with the fixed point. Their product is , hence their periodic-orbit multiplier is . Thus
It is repelling for and reaches its next period-doubling bifurcation threshold at . At that exact endpoint it is weakly attracting: if is expanded about either periodic orbit point as , then , , and . Its second return is .
At put . The double-angle identity gives
This verifies the printed relation to the Bernoulli shift. Precisely, it is a semiconjugacy: , so it is not invertible on the circle. To obtain a genuine interval topological conjugacy, use the homeomorphism from onto , and the full tent map
The same identity proves .
The full tent map has dense periodic points, is topologically mixing and has sensitive dependence on initial conditions. To see these properties directly, its th iterate has monotone branches on dyadic intervals of length , each mapping onto . Every nonempty open interval contains such a branch domain, and a later iterate covers all of , proving topological mixing. On any branch, the function graph of the iterate has a fixed point by the intermediate value theorem, so periodic points occur in every open interval. Given any initial point and any neighborhood, some iterate of that neighborhood covers the interval; one can choose a nearby point whose image differs from the initial point's image by at least a fixed positive distance. This proves sensitive dependence on initial conditions. Uniform continuity of the inverse homeomorphism transfers these properties to on .
Consequently the real quadratic iteration map is chaotic on its invariant interval in the Devaney sense: topological transitivity, dense periodic points and sensitive dependence on initial conditions, with all these orbits bounded. There are also aperiodic orbits: periodic points form a countable union of finite sets of roots of an equation of the equations , whereas the interval is uncountable. The semiconjugacy alone would not justify treating as invertible; the tent-map argument supplies the missing rigorous transfer.
The homeomorphism maps to and satisfies , where is the full tent map and . This transfers dense periodic points, topological mixing and sensitivity to the quadratic interval map. The related circle map only gives a semiconjugacy from doubling, because and is not injective.
Topological mixing 2026-10-31
A continuous map is topologically mixing if for every pair of nonempty open sets there is an integer such that for every . This is stronger than topological transitivity, which asks only for some hitting time. For the full tent map, each sufficiently small dyadic branch interval is mapped onto the whole space by an iterate, proving mixing.