For $c \in \mathbb {Q}$ , consider the quadratic polynomial map $\varphi _c(z)=z^2-c$ . Flynn, Poonen, and Schaefer conjectured in 1997 that no rational cycle of $\varphi _c$ under iteration has length more than $3$ . Here, we discuss this conjecture using arithmetic and combinatorial means, leading to three main results. First, we show that if $\varphi _c$ admits a rational cycle of length $n \ge 3$ , then the denominator of c must be divisible by $16$ . We then provide an upper bound on the number of periodic rational points of $\varphi _c$ in terms of the number s of distinct prime factors of the denominator of c. Finally, we show that the Flynn–Poonen–Schaefer conjecture holds for $\varphi _c$ if $s \le 2$ , i.e., if the denominator of c has at most two distinct prime factors.

We study the discrete dynamics of standard (or left) polynomials $f(x)$ over division rings D. We define their fixed points to be the points $\lambda \in D$ for which $f^{\circ n}(\lambda )=\lambda $ for any $n \in \mathbb {N}$ , where $f^{\circ n}(x)$ is defined recursively by $f^{\circ n}(x)=f(f^{\circ (n-1)}(x))$ and $f^{\circ 1}(x)=f(x)$ . Periodic points are similarly defined. We prove that $\lambda $ is a fixed point of $f(x)$ if and only if $f(\lambda )=\lambda $ , which enables the use of known results from the theory of polynomial equations, to conclude that any polynomial of degree $m \geq 2$ has at most m conjugacy classes of fixed points. We also show that in general, periodic points do not behave as in the commutative case. We provide a sufficient condition for periodic points to behave as expected.

We advance a new conjecture in the spirit of the dynamical Manin–Mumford conjecture. We show that our conjecture holds for all polarisable endomorphisms of abelian varieties and for all polarisable endomorphisms of $(\mathbb{P}^{1})^{N}$. Furthermore, we show various examples which highlight the restrictions one would need to consider in formulating any general conclusion in the dynamical Manin–Mumford conjecture.

Let $f:X\rightarrow X$ be a quasi-finite endomorphism of an algebraic variety $X$ defined over a number field $K$ and fix an initial point $a\in X$. We consider a special case of the Dynamical Mordell–Lang Conjecture, where the subvariety $V$ contains only finitely many periodic points and does not contain any positive-dimensional periodic subvariety. We show that the set $\{n\in \mathbb{Z}_{{\geqslant}0}\mid f^{n}(a)\in V\}$ satisfies a strong gap principle.

Fix $d\geqslant 2$ and a field $k$ such that $\operatorname{char}k\nmid d$. Assume that $k$ contains the $d$th roots of $1$. Then the irreducible components of the curves over $k$ parameterizing preperiodic points of polynomials of the form $z^{d}+c$ are geometrically irreducible and have gonality tending to $\infty$. This implies the function field analogue of the strong uniform boundedness conjecture for preperiodic points of $z^{d}+c$. It also has consequences over number fields: it implies strong uniform boundedness for preperiodic points of bounded eventual period, which in turn reduces the full conjecture for preperiodic points to the conjecture for periodic points. Our proofs involve a novel argument specific to finite fields, in addition to more standard tools such as the Castelnuovo–Severi inequality.

We consider cubic polynomials $f\left( z \right)\,=\,{{z}^{3}}\,+\,az\,+\,b$ defined over $\mathbb{C}\left( \lambda \right)$, with a marked point of period $N$ and multiplier $\lambda$. In the case $N\,=\,1$, there are infinitely many such objects, and in the case $N\,\ge \,3$, only finitely many (subject to a mild assumption). The case $N\,=\,2$ has particularly rich structure, and we are able to describe all such cubic polynomials defined over the field ${{\cup }_{n\ge 1}}\,\mathbb{C}\left( {{\lambda }^{1/n}} \right)$.