A spectral decomposition of the attractor of piecewise contracting maps of the interval

Abstract

We study the asymptotic dynamics of piecewise contracting maps defined on a compact interval. For maps that are not necessarily injective, but have a finite number of local extrema and discontinuity points, we prove the existence of a decomposition of the support of the asymptotic dynamics into a finite number of minimal components. Each component is either a periodic orbit or a minimal Cantor set and such that the ω-limit set of (almost) every point in the interval is exactly one of these components. Moreover, we show that each component is the ω-limit set, or the closure of the orbit, of a one-sided limit of the map at a discontinuity point or at a local extremum.