Refinements of topological invariants of flows (Q2131182)

Taking into account the question of reducing dynamical systems into finite topological invariants, the author introduces a directed structure on the orbit space and constructs topological invariants of flows (continuous \(\mathbb R\)-actions) and homeomorphisms on topological spaces. These invariants are called abstract orbit spaces and abstract weak orbit spaces, too involved to be described here in a few lines. Then, among other results, the author proves that the abstract weak orbit spaces are refinements of Morse graphs of flows on compact metric spaces, Reeb graphs of Hamiltonian flows with finitely many singular points on surfaces, and CW decompositions, which consist of the unstable manifolds of singular points for Morse flows on closed manifolds. Another interesting question is to know when the time-one map of a flow can allow the reconstruction of the topology of the original flow. The author proves that this is possible for Hamiltonian flows with finitely many singular points on a compact manifold and for Morse flows on compact manifolds: (i) For any Hamiltonian flow \(v\) with finitely many singular points on a compact surface, there is an arbitrarily small reparametrization \(w\) of \(v\) with the compact-open topology such that the orbit space of \(v\) is homeomorphic to the abstract weak orbit space of the time-one map of the reparametrization \(w\) (see Theorem 6.3) ; (ii) The (second) abstract weak orbit space of a Morse-Smale flow on a compact manifold is homeomorphic to the second abstract weak orbit space of the time-one map (see Theorem 6.5); (iii) The abstract weak orbit space of a Morse flow on a compact manifold is homeomorphic to the abstract weak orbit space of the time-one map (see Corollary 6) . The paper finishes with a series of examples illustrating the case where the abstract weak orbit space is a singleton, and the situation corresponding to Morse graphs which are singletons but their abstract weak orbit spaces are not singletons. It is worth emphasizing the clear organization of the contents, being as self-contained as possible, and the very nice figures accompanying the theoretic explanation in several parts of the paper.