Geometry of minimal flows (Q860498)

The aim of this paper is to suggest that dynamical properties of a minimal flow on a compact Riemannian manifold can be determined by the geometric properties of the manifold. The main result states that if \(\phi\) is a minimal flow on a compact Riemannian manifold \(M\), then if \(M\) is a torus, the flow is topologically conjugate to a linear flow with irrational slope, while if \(M\) is not a torus, every parametrization of \(\phi\) exhibits sensitive dependence on initial conditions. The proof is based on an unpublished result by \textit{A. Lopez} and \textit{A. Candel} [Equicontinuous foliated spaces, preprint], which gives necessary and sufficient conditions for a transitive compact foliated space \((X,\mathcal{F})\) to be a Riemannian foliation. In his approach, the author gives also a necessary and sufficient condition that a flow on a manifold \(M\) be nowhere equicontinuous.