On the Morse-Smale diffeomorphisms with four periodic points on closed orientable manifolds. (Q1889543)

Let \(M^n\) be a closed orientable \(n\)-dimensional manifold and let \(\text{MS}(M^n, 4)\) be the set of Morse-Smale diffeomorphisms on \(M^n\) with the nonwandering set \(\Omega(f)\) consisting of exactly four periodic points. For \(n=3\), the following two results are proved: (1) if \(f\in \text{MS}(M^3,4)\), then \(f\) is gradient-like; and (2) if \(f\in \text{MS}(M^3, 4)\) with \(M^3\) admitting the 3-sphere as the universal covering space and \(\Omega(f)\) consisting of two nodes and two saddles, then there is at least one nonclosed heteroclinic curve bounded by saddles and each of such heteroclinic curves is invariant under \(f^m\) for some \(m\). Let \(\text{MS}_{n-1}(M^n,4)\) be the set of diffoemorphsims in \(\text{MS}(M^n,4)\) with \(\Omega(f)\) consisting of three nodes and one saddle of codimension one. For \(n\geq 4\), the authors prove the following two results: (1) if \(f\in \text{MS}_{n-1}(M^n,4)\), then \(M^n\) is the \(n\)-sphere, the unstable manifold of the saddle and one of the nodes form an \((n-1)\)-sphere which is cylindrically embedded in the \(n\)-sphere and bounds an \(n\)-disk containing a single node, and the closures of the one-dimensional separatrices of the saddle contain different nodes; and (2) two diffeomorphsims in \(\text{MS}_{n-1}(M^n,4)\) are conjugate if and only if their saddles have the same Morse index (either \(1\) or \(n-1\)).