Expanding maps on flowers, interval exchange transformations, and ergodic optimization

In this paper, we discuss expanding maps on a class of invariant sets called flowers. We show that any set contained in a flower has at most linear complexity, and we present a relationship between flowers and a special class of interval exchange transformations. This extends work of Bullett and Sentenac, who showed that any Sturmian system may be embedded into the circle as a doubling-invariant subset that is contained in a half circle. Flowers were first introduced in the context of ergodic optimization, as candidate sets for supporting maximizing measures. We discuss the relationship to ergodic optimization, and present numerical results that support the conjecture that trigonometric polynomials are maximized on flowers.