Texas A&M University, Department of Mathematics, 216 Milner Hall, 26th of March 2008, 3:00-3:50

Groups and Dynamics Seminar


Combinatorial models of expanding self-coverings

Volodymyr Nekrashevych of Texas A&M University


We will present a notion of a "topological automaton", which is a pair of (orbi)spaces M_1, M, with a covering M_1 -> M and a map M_1 -> M. These objects generalize post-critically finite rational functions (of one or more variables), Moore diagrams of group automata, "topological graph" of Katsura, subdivision rules, etc. One can iterate topological automata and define their iterate monodromy groups and Cuntz-Pimsner algebras. If the topological automaton is contracting, then its iterations converge to the limit space of its iterated monodromy group in a natural sense. This observation allows to construct simple models of Julia sets of expanding branched self-coverings (e.g. post-critically finite rational functions). As an example I will present a combinatorial model of a class of post-critically finite endomorphisms of CP^n.