CHECKERBOARD JULIA SETS FOR RATIONAL MAPS

In this paper, we consider the family of rational maps

where n ≥ 2, d ≥ 1, and λ ∈ ℂ. We consider the case where λ lies in the main cardioid of one of the n - 1 principal Mandelbrot sets in these families. We show that the Julia sets of these maps are always homeomorphic. However, two such maps F_λ and F_μ are conjugate on these Julia sets only if the parameters at the centers of the given cardioids satisfy μ = ν^j(d+1)λ or where j ∈ ℤ and ν is an (n - 1)th root of unity. We define a dynamical invariant, which we call the minimal rotation number. It determines which of these maps are conjugate on their Julia sets, and we obtain an exact count of the number of distinct conjugacy classes of maps drawn from these main cardioids.