On the simple isotopy class of a source-sink diffeomorphism on the 3-sphere (Q2439995)

The main theorem of the paper gives a necessary and sufficient condition for a Morse-Smale diffeomorphism on \(S^3\) without heteroclinic intersections to be isotopic to a source-sink diffeomorphism via a simple arc. Let \(\text{Diff}(M^n)\) be the space of \(C^1\) diffeomorphisms on a closed manifold \(M^n\), let \(KS(M^n)\) be the subspace of Kupka-Smale diffeomorphisms, and let \(MS(M^n)\) be the subspace of Morse-Smale diffeomorphisms. A smooth arc \(\xi\) in \(\text{Diff}(M^n)\) is a family of diffeomorphisms \(\{\xi_t \in \text{Diff}(M^n)|\;t \in [0,1] \}\) depending smoothly on \(t\), and its bifurcation set is \(B(\xi) = \{b \in [0,1] |\;\xi_b \not\in KS(M^n)\}\). Definition 1. An arc \(\xi\) is said to be \textit{simple} if the bifurcation set \(B(\xi)\) is finite, \(\xi_t \in MS(M^n)\) for any \(t \in ([0,1] \backslash B(\xi) )\), and the bifurcations are of one of the following types: saddle-node; periodic doubling; heteroclinic tangency. Let \(I_{NS}\) denote the set of source-sink diffeomorphisms on \(S^3\). In an earlier paper it was proved that all the elements in \(I_{NS}\) are in the same simple isotopy class [\textit{C. Bonatti} et al., Proc. Steklov Inst. Math. 256, 47--61 (2007); translation from Tr. Mat. Inst. Steklova 256, 54--69 (2007; Zbl 1153.37340)]. Let \(f \in MS(M^3)\), and let \(\Omega_f^q\) denote the set of periodic points \(p\) such that the unstable manifold \(W^u_p\) has dimension \(q\) for \(q=0,1,2,3\). Define \(A_f = W^u_{\Omega_f^0 \cup \Omega_f^1}\) and \(R_f = W^u_{\Omega_f^2 \cup \Omega_f^3}\). The authors say that \(A_f\) and \(R_f\) are \textit{separated by a \(2\)-sphere} if there exists a smooth \(2\)-sphere \(\Sigma_f \subset M^3 \backslash (A_f \cup R_f)\) such that \(A_f\) and \(R_f\) belong to different connected components of \(M^3 \backslash \Sigma_f\). Let \(MS_0(S^3)\) denote the set of Morse-Smale diffeomorphisms without heteroclinic intersections on the \(3\)-sphere \(S^3\). The main result in the paper is the following. Theorem 1. A diffeomorphism \(f \in MS_0(S^3)\) belongs to the class \(I_{NS}\) if and only if the attractor \(A_f\) and the repeller \(R_f\) are seperated by a \(2\)-sphere.