A quadratic map in one variable is a quadratic recurrence equation of the form
|
(1)
|
where
and
is a nonnegative
integer. While some quadratic maps are solvable in closed form (for example,
the three solvable cases of the logistic map), most
are not.
A simple example of a quadratic map with a closed-form solution is
|
(2)
|
with , which has solution
, the first few terms of which for
, 1, ... are 2, 4, 16, 256, 65536, 4294967296, ...
(OEIS A001146).
Another example is the number of "strongly" rooted binary trees of height , given by
|
(3)
|
Here each internal vertex has exactly two ordered children, and height is
measured in edges. With , the first few terms for
, 1, ... are 1, 2, 5, 26, 677, 458330, 210066388901,
44127887745906175987802, ... (OEIS A003095).
This recurrence equation has the "analytic"
solution
|
(4)
|
where
|
(5)
| |||
|
(6)
|
(OEIS A077496) and is the floor function
(Aho and Sloane 1973).
A third example is the closest strict underapproximation of the number 1,
|
(7)
|
where
is a positive integer and
are integers.
The solution is given by the recurrence
|
(8)
|
with . The resulting sequence is known as Sylvester's
sequence and has first few terms 2, 3, 7, 43, 1807, 3263443, 10650056950807,
... (OEIS A000058). This has a closed solution
as
|
(9)
|
where
|
(10)
| |||
|
(11)
|
(OEIS A076393; Aho and Sloane 1973, Vardi 1991, Graham et al. 1994).
The well-known recurrence
|
(12)
|
that is often called "the" quadratic map is not in general solvable in closed form. This is the real version of the complex map defining the Mandelbrot set. Fixed points of this map occur when
|
(13)
|
|
(14)
|
|
(15)
|
Points of period dividing 2 satisfy
|
(16)
| |||
|
(17)
| |||
|
(18)
| |||
|
(19)
|
Dropping the subscripts and factoring gives
|
(20)
|
For , the real periodic
points of least period 2 are
|
(21)
|
There are no real periodic points of least period 2 for . The periodic
points of least period 3 satisfy
|
(22)
|
The roots of this equation that are also fixed points must be excluded.
Another example of a quadratic map with a closed-form solution is the case with
|
(23)
|
This has solution
|
(24)
|
where
|
(25)
|
Similarly, the case with
|
(26)
|
has solution
|
(27)
|
where
|
(28)
|
(Little).
After a linear transformation of coordinates, a real two-dimensional quadratic map with an elliptic fixed point at the origin has the form
|
(29)
| |||
|
(30)
|
Here . The Jacobian
must be identically 1 for the map to be area-preserving,
reducing the number of independent parameters from seven to three. If the quadratic
part is nonzero, scaling and rotating give the standard Hénon
map form (Hénon 1969)
|
(31)
| |||
|
(32)
|
The inverse map is
|
(33)
| |||
|
(34)
|
The periodic points with period dividing a positive integer are characterized by
|
(35)
|
for , ...,
, with indices taken modulo
.