In mathematics, in the study of iterated functions and dynamical systems, a periodic point of a function is a point which the system returns to after a certain number of function iterations or a certain amount of time.
Given a mapping from a set into itself,
a point in is called periodic point if there exists an >0 so that
where is the th iterate of . The smallest positive integer satisfying the above is called the prime period or least period of the point . If every point in is a periodic point with the same period , then is called periodic with period (this is not to be confused with the notion of a periodic function).
If there exist distinct and such that
then is called a preperiodic point. All periodic points are preperiodic.
If is a diffeomorphism of a differentiable manifold, so that the derivative is defined, then one says that a periodic point is hyperbolic if
that it is attractive if
and it is repelling if
If the dimension of the stable manifold of a periodic point or fixed point is zero, the point is called a source; if the dimension of its unstable manifold is zero, it is called a sink; and if both the stable and unstable manifold have nonzero dimension, it is called a saddle or saddle point.
A period-one point is called a fixed point.
The logistic map
exhibits periodicity for various values of the parameter . For between 0 and 1, 0 is the sole periodic point, with period 1 (giving the sequence which attracts all orbits). For between 1 and 3, the value 0 is still periodic but is not attracting, while the value is an attracting periodic point of period 1. With greater than 3 but less than there are a pair of period-2 points which together form an attracting sequence, as well as the non-attracting period-1 points 0 and As the value of parameter rises toward 4, there arise groups of periodic points with any positive integer for the period; for some values of one of these repeating sequences is attracting while for others none of them are (with almost all orbits being chaotic).
Given a real global dynamical system with the phase space and the evolution function,
a point in is called periodic with period if
The smallest positive with this property is called prime period of the point .