Bifurcation sets arising from non-integer base expansions

TL;DR

This paper studies the bifurcation set in non-integer base expansions, characterizing its properties, and calculating its Hausdorff dimension, revealing intricate fractal structures in the parameter space.

Contribution

It provides new characterizations of the bifurcation set and computes its Hausdorff dimension, especially the dimension of the difference set when M=1, using transversality techniques.

Findings

The bifurcation set is contained in the set of bases where 1 has a unique expansion.

The Hausdorff dimension of the difference between the bifurcation set and a related set is strictly between 0 and 1.

For M=1, the Hausdorff dimension of this difference set is approximately 0.3687.

Abstract

Given a positive integer $M$ and $q\in(1,M+1]$, let $\mathcal U_q$ be the set of $x\in[0, M/(q-1)]$ having a unique $q$-expansion: there exists a unique sequence $(x_i)=x_1x_2\ldots$ with each $x_i\in\{0,1,\ldots, M\}$ such that \[ x=\frac{x_1}{q}+\frac{x_2}{q^2}+\frac{x_3}{q^3}+\cdots. \] Denote by $\mathbf U_q$ the set of corresponding sequences of all points in $\mathcal U_q$. It is well-known that the function $H: q\mapsto h(\mathbf U_q)$ is a Devil's staircase, where $h(\mathbf U_q)$ denotes the topological entropy of $\mathbf U_q$. In this paper we {give several characterizations of} the bifurcation set \[ \mathcal B:=\{q\in(1,M+1]: H(p)\ne H(q)\textrm{ for any }p\ne q\}. \] Note that $\mathcal B$ is contained in the set $\mathcal{U}^R$ of bases $q\in(1,M+1]$ such that $1\in\mathcal U_q$. By using a transversality technique we also calculate the Hausdorff dimension of the difference $\mathcal B\backslash\mathcal{U}^R$. Interestingly this quantity is always strictly between $0$ and $1$. When $M=1$ the Hausdorff dimension of $\mathcal B\backslash\mathcal{U}^R$ is $\frac{\log 2}{3\log \lambda^*}\approx 0.368699$, where $\lambda^*$ is the unique root in $(1, 2)$ of the equation $x^5-x^4-x^3-2x^2+x+1=0$.