The geometry of preperiodic points in families of maps on ${\mathbb{P}}^N$

Abstract

We study the dynamics of complex algebraic families of maps on ${\mathbb{P}}^N$, and the geometry of their preperiodic points. The goal of this article is to formulate a conjectural characterization of the subvarieties of $S\times {\mathbb{P}}^N$ containing a Zariski-dense set of preperiodic points, where the parameter space $S$ is a quasi-projective complex algebraic variety; the characterization is given in terms of the non-vanishing of a power of the invariant Green current associated to the family of maps. This conjectural characterization is inspired by and generalizes the relative Manin–Mumford conjecture for families of abelian varieties, recently proved by Gao and Habegger, and it includes as special cases the Manin–Mumford conjecture (theorem of Raynaud) and the dynamical Manin–Mumford conjecture (posed by Ghioca, Tucker, and Zhang). We provide examples where the equivalence is known to hold, and we show that many recent results can be viewed as special cases. Finally, we give the proof of one implication in the conjectural characterization.