Flynn–Poonen–Schaefer conjecture on rational periods of quadratic polynomials

Let n4n\geq 4, and let φ2,c(z)=z2+c\varphi_{2,c}(z)=z^2+c be a quadratic polynomial with cQc\in\mathbb Q. A rational point has exact period nn if its orbit under iteration of φ2,c\varphi_{2,c} returns to itself for the first time after exactly nn iterations.

Flynn–Poonen–Schaefer conjecture. There is no quadratic polynomial φ2,c(z)=z2+cQ[z]\varphi_{2,c}(z)=z^2+c\in\mathbb Q[z] with a rational point of exact period nn.

This is a special case of the uniform boundedness conjecture for D=N=1D=N=1 and d=2d=2. The claim concerns the possible exact periods of rational points and remains open as stated.

Sources & referencesView supporting material

Primary source

Brian Kintu, “Counting the number of 1_m-preperiodic O_K-points of a discrete dynamical system with applications from arithmetic statistics, VII”, arXiv:2606.14468 (2026).

Additional references

7 papers in this index state this conjecture (2008–2026). The statement above is taken from the most recent of them; the others are arXiv:2511.00322, arXiv:2505.24565, arXiv:2206.12154, arXiv:1903.08865, arXiv:1711.06345, arXiv:0811.3225.

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