The Structure Of Functional Graphs For Functions From A Finite Domain To Itself For Which A Half Iterate Exists

Abstract

The notion of a replica of a nontrivial in-tree is defined. A result enabling to determine whether an in-tree is a replica of another in-tree employing an injective mapping between some subsets of sources of these in-trees is presented. There are given necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of a functional square root of a function from a finite set to itself through presenting necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of a square root of a component of the functional graph for the function and for the existence of a square root of the union of two components of the functional graph for the function containing cycles of the same length using the concept of the replica.