Critical points for surface diffeomorphisms (Q2474580)

A concept of critical set for any dissipative surface diffeomorphism is developed by the authors of this paper using the notion of dominated splitting. Given a smooth function \(f\) mapping a smooth surface \(M\) to itself, an \(f\)-invariant set \(\Lambda\) is said to have dominated splitting if the tangent bundle \(T_\Lambda M\) can be decomposed into two invariant subbundles \(T_\Lambda M= E\oplus F\) such that \[ |Df^n(E_x)|\cdot| Df^{-n}(F_{f^n(x)})|\leq C\lambda^n \] for all \(x\in\Lambda\) and all \(n\geq 0\), for some \(C> 0\) and \(0<\lambda< t\). The authors define the critical set for \(f\) to be essentially the region where dominated splitting fails. The primary result is that, for generic smooth surface diffeomorphisms, any dissipative compact invariant set is hyperbolic if and only if it does not contain any critical points.