In
dynamical systems theory
Dynamical systems theory is an area of mathematics used to describe the behavior of complex systems, complex dynamical systems, usually by employing differential equations or difference equations. When differential equations are employed, the theo ...
, the baker's map is a
chaotic
Chaotic was originally a Danish trading card game. It expanded to an online game in America which then became a television program based on the game. The program was able to be seen on 4Kids TV (Fox affiliates, nationwide), Jetix, The CW4Kids ...
map from the
unit square
In mathematics, a unit square is a square whose sides have length . Often, ''the'' unit square refers specifically to the square in the Cartesian plane with corners at the four points ), , , and .
Cartesian coordinates
In a Cartesian coordina ...
into itself. It is named after a
kneading
In cooking (and more specifically baking), kneading is a process in the making of bread or dough, used to mix the ingredients and add strength to the final product. Its importance lies in the mixing of flour with water; when these two ingredien ...
operation that
baker
A baker is a tradesperson who bakes and sometimes sells breads and other products made of flour by using an oven or other concentrated heat source. The place where a baker works is called a bakery.
History
Ancient history
Since grains ...
s apply to dough: the dough is cut in half, and the two halves are stacked on one another, and compressed.
The baker's map can be understood as the bilateral
shift operator
In mathematics, and in particular functional analysis, the shift operator also known as translation operator is an operator that takes a function
to its translation . In time series analysis, the shift operator is called the lag operator.
Shift ...
of a bi-infinite two-state
lattice model. The baker's map is
topologically conjugate to the
horseshoe map
In the mathematics of chaos theory, a horseshoe map is any member of a class of chaotic maps of the square into itself. It is a core example in the study of dynamical systems. The map was introduced by Stephen Smale while studying the behavior ...
. In
physics
Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which rel ...
, a chain of coupled baker's maps can be used to model deterministic
diffusion
Diffusion is the net movement of anything (for example, atoms, ions, molecules, energy) generally from a region of higher concentration to a region of lower concentration. Diffusion is driven by a gradient in Gibbs free energy or chemical p ...
.
As with many deterministic
dynamical system
In mathematics, a dynamical system is a system in which a function describes the time dependence of a point in an ambient space. Examples include the mathematical models that describe the swinging of a clock pendulum, the flow of water i ...
s, the baker's map is studied by its action on the
space of functions
In mathematics, a function space is a set of functions between two fixed sets. Often, the domain and/or codomain will have additional structure which is inherited by the function space. For example, the set of functions from any set into a ve ...
defined on the unit square. The baker's map defines an operator on the space of functions, known as the
transfer operator of the map. The baker's map is an
exactly solvable model of
deterministic chaos, in that the
eigenfunction
In mathematics, an eigenfunction of a linear operator ''D'' defined on some function space is any non-zero function f in that space that, when acted upon by ''D'', is only multiplied by some scaling factor called an eigenvalue. As an equation, ...
s and
eigenvalue
In linear algebra, an eigenvector () or characteristic vector of a linear transformation is a nonzero vector that changes at most by a scalar factor when that linear transformation is applied to it. The corresponding eigenvalue, often denot ...
s of the transfer operator can be explicitly determined.
Formal definition
There are two alternative definitions of the baker's map which are in common use. One definition folds over or rotates one of the sliced halves before joining it (similar to the
horseshoe map
In the mathematics of chaos theory, a horseshoe map is any member of a class of chaotic maps of the square into itself. It is a core example in the study of dynamical systems. The map was introduced by Stephen Smale while studying the behavior ...
) and the other does not.
The folded baker's map acts on the unit square as
:
When the upper section is not folded over, the map may be written as
:
The folded baker's map is a two-dimensional analog of the
tent map
A tent () is a shelter consisting of sheets of fabric or other material draped over, attached to a frame of poles or a supporting rope. While smaller tents may be free-standing or attached to the ground, large tents are usually anchored using ...
:
while the unfolded map is analogous to the
Bernoulli map
The dyadic transformation (also known as the dyadic map, bit shift map, 2''x'' mod 1 map, Bernoulli map, doubling map or sawtooth map) is the mapping (i.e., recurrence relation)
: T: , 1) \to [0, 1)^\infty
: x \mapsto (x_0, x_1, x_2, ...
. Both maps are topologically conjugate. The Bernoulli map can be understood as the map that progressively lops digits off the dyadic expansion of ''x''. Unlike the tent map, the baker's map is invertible.
Properties
The baker's map preserves the two-dimensional Lebesgue measure.

The map is
strong mixing and it is
topologically mixing
In mathematics, mixing is an abstract concept originating from physics: the attempt to describe the irreversible thermodynamic process of mixing in the everyday world: mixing paint, mixing drinks, industrial mixing, ''etc''.
The concept appear ...
.
The
transfer operator maps
functions on the unit square to other functions on the unit square; it is given by
:
The transfer operator is
unitary on the
Hilbert space
In mathematics, Hilbert spaces (named after David Hilbert) allow generalizing the methods of linear algebra and calculus from (finite-dimensional) Euclidean vector spaces to spaces that may be infinite-dimensional. Hilbert spaces arise natu ...
of
square-integrable function
In mathematics, a square-integrable function, also called a quadratically integrable function or L^2 function or square-summable function, is a real- or complex-valued measurable function for which the integral of the square of the absolute val ...
s on the unit square. The spectrum is continuous, and because the operator is unitary the eigenvalues lie on the unit circle. The transfer operator is not unitary on the space
of functions polynomial in the first coordinate and square-integrable in the second. On this space, it has a discrete, non-unitary, decaying spectrum.
As a shift operator
The baker's map can be understood as the two-sided
shift operator
In mathematics, and in particular functional analysis, the shift operator also known as translation operator is an operator that takes a function
to its translation . In time series analysis, the shift operator is called the lag operator.
Shift ...
on the
symbolic dynamics In mathematics, symbolic dynamics is the practice of modeling a topological or smooth dynamical system by a discrete space consisting of infinite sequences of abstract symbols, each of which corresponds to a state of the system, with the dynamics ( ...
of a one-dimensional lattice. Consider, for example, the bi-infinite string
:
where each position in the string may take one of the two binary values
. The action of the shift operator on this string is
:
that is, each lattice position is shifted over by one to the left. The bi-infinite string may be represented by two
real number
In mathematics, a real number is a number that can be used to measurement, measure a ''continuous'' one-dimensional quantity such as a distance, time, duration or temperature. Here, ''continuous'' means that values can have arbitrarily small var ...
s
as
:
and
:
In this representation, the shift operator has the form
:
which is seen to be the unfolded baker's map given above.
See also
*
Bernoulli process
In probability and statistics, a Bernoulli process (named after Jacob Bernoulli) is a finite or infinite sequence of binary random variables, so it is a discrete-time stochastic process that takes only two values, canonically 0 and 1. Th ...
References
*
* Ronald J. Fox, "Construction of the Jordan basis for the Baker map", ''Chaos'', 7 p 254 (1997)
* Dean J. Driebe, ''Fully Chaotic Maps and Broken Time Symmetry'', (1999) Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht Netherlands ''(Exposition of the eigenfunctions the Baker's map)''.
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Exactly solvable models
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