In this article we prove an analogue of the equidistribution of preimages theorem from complex dynamics for maps of good reduction over nonarchimedean fields. While in general our result is only a partial analogue of the complex equidistribution theorem, for most maps of good reduction it is a complete analogue. In the particular case when the nonarchimedean field in question is equipped with the trivial absolute value, we are able to supply a strengthening of the theorem, namely that the preimages...

Given a rational function $\varphi \left(T\right)$ on ${\mathbb{P}}^1$ of degree at least 2 with coefficients in a number field $k$, we show that for each place $v$ of $k$, there is a unique probability measure ${\mu }_{\varphi ,v}$ on the Berkovich space ${\mathbb{P}}_{\mathrm{Berk},\mathrm{v}}^1/{ℂ}_v$ such that if $\left\{z_n\right\}$ is a sequence of points in ${\mathbb{P}}^1\left(\overline{k}\right)$ whose $\varphi$-canonical heights tend to zero, then the $z_n$’s and their $\mathrm{Gal}(\overline{k}/k)$-conjugates are equidistributed with respect to ${\mu }_{\varphi ,v}$.The proof uses a polynomial lift $F(x,y)=(F_1(x,y),F_2(x,y))$ of $\varphi$ to construct a two-variable Arakelov-Green’s function $g_{\varphi ,v}(x,y)$ for each $v$. The measure ${\mu }_{\varphi ,v}$ is obtained by taking the...