Periods of rational maps modulo primes

Abstract

Let $K$ be a number field, let $ϕ\in K(t)$ be a rational map of degree at least 2, and let $α, β\in K$. We show that if $α$ is not in the forward orbit of $β$, then there is a positive proportion of primes ${\mathfrak p}$ of $K$ such that $α\mod {\mathfrak p}$ is not in the forward orbit of $β\mod {\mathfrak p}$. Moreover, we show that a similar result holds for several maps and several points. We also present heuristic and numerical evidence that a higher dimensional analog of this result is unlikely to be true if we replace $α$ by a hypersurface, such as the ramification locus of a morphism $ϕ: {\mathbb P}^{n} \to {\mathbb P}^{n}$.