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Journal of the London Mathematical Society Advance Access published online on July 10, 2008
Journal of the London Mathematical Society, doi:10.1112/jlms/jdn034
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© 2008 London Mathematical Society

The density of prime divisors in the arithmetic dynamics of quadratic polynomials

Rafe Jones

Department of Mathematics
University of Wisconsin-Madison
480 Lincoln Dr.
Madison, WI 53706
USA

Let f isin Z[x], and consider the recurrence given by an = f(an – 1), with a0 isin Z. Denote by P(f, a0) the set of prime divisors of this recurrence, that is, the set of primes dividing at least one non-zero term, and denote the natural density of this set by D(P(f, a0)). The problem of determining D(P(f, a0)) when f is linear has attracted significant study, although it remains unresolved in full generality. In this paper, we consider the case of f quadratic, where previously D(P(f, a0)) was known only in a few cases. We show that D(P(f, a0)) = 0 regardless of a0 for four infinite families of f, including f = x2 + k, k isin Z\ {–1}. The proof relies on tools from group theory and probability theory to formulate a sufficient condition for D(P(f, a0)) = 0 in terms of arithmetic properties of the forward orbit of the critical point of f. This provides an analogy to results in real and complex dynamics, where analytic properties of the forward orbit of the critical point have been shown to determine many global dynamical properties of a quadratic polynomial. The article also includes apparently new work on the irreducibility of iterates of quadratic polynomials.

2000 Mathematics Subject Classification 11R32 (primary), 11B37, 11C08, 60G42 (secondary).

Received February 20, 2007; revised March 26, 2008;
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