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# Contraction mapping

In mathematics, a contraction mapping, or contraction, on a metric space (M,d) is a function f from M to itself, with the property that there is some real number k < 1 such that, for all x and y in M,

$d(f(x),f(y))\leq k\,d(x,y).$

The smallest such value of k is called the Lipschitz constant of f. Contractive maps are sometimes called Lipschitzian maps. If the Lipschitz constant is equal to one, then the mapping is said to be non-expansive.

More generally, the idea of a contractive mapping can be defined for maps between metric spaces. Thus, if (M,d) and (N,g) are two metric spaces, and $f:M\rightarrow N$, then one looks for the constant k such that $g(f(x),f(y))\leq k\,d(x,y)$ for all x and y in M.

Every contraction mapping is Lipschitz continuous and hence uniformly continuous.

According to the Banach fixed point theorem, a contraction map has at most one fixed point. This theorem states that every contraction mapping on a nonempty complete metric space has a unique fixed point, and that, for any x in M, the iterated function sequence x, f (x), f (f (x)), f (f (f (x))), ... converges to the fixed point.

## References

• Vasile I. Istratescu, Fixed Point Theory, An Introduction, D.Reidel, Holland (1981). ISBN 90-277-1224-7 provides an undergraduate level introduction.
• Andrzej Granas and James Dugundji, Fixed Point Theory (2003) Springer-Verlag, New York, ISBN 0-387-00173-5
• William A. Kirk and Brailey Sims, Handbook of Metric Fixed Point Theory (2001), Kluwer Academic, London ISBN 0-7923-7073-2
03-10-2013 05:06:04