1 Introduction and statement of results
Qualitative study of dynamical systems reveals various topological constructions naturally emerged in the modern theory. For example, the Cantor set with cardinality of continuum and Lebesgue measure zero as an expanding attractor or an contracting repeller. Also, a curve in 2-torus with an irrational rotation number, which is not a topological submanifold but is an injectively immersed subset, can be found being invariant manifold of the Anosov toral diffeomorphism's fixed point.
Another example of linkage between topology and dynamics is the Fox-Artin arc [4] appeared in work by D. Pixton [9] as the closure of a saddle separatrix of a Morse-Smale diffeomorphism on the 3-sphere. A wild behaviour of the Fox-Artin arc complicates the classification of dynamical systems, there is no combinatorial description as Peixoto's graph [8] for 2-dimensional Morse-Smale flows.
It is well known that there are no wild arcs in dimension 2. They exist in dimension 3 and can be realized as invariant sets for discrete dynamics, unlike regular 3-dimensional flows, which do not possess wild invariant sets. The dimension 4 is very rich. Here appear wild objects for both discrete and continuous dynamics. Although there are no wild arcs in this dimension, there are wild objects of co-dimension 1 and 2. So, the closure of 2-dimensional saddle separatrix can be wild for 4-dimensional Morse-Smale system (a diffeomorphism or a flow). Such examples have been recently constructed by V. Medvedev and E. Zhuzoma [6]. T. Medvedev and O. Pochinka [7] have shown that the wild Fox-Artin 2-dimension sphere appears as closure of heteroclinic intersection of Morse-Smale 4-diffeomorphism.
In the present paper we prove that the suspension under a non-trivial Pixton's diffeomorphism provides a 4-flow with wildly embedded 3-dimensional invariant manifold of a periodic orbit. Moreover, we show that there are countable many different wild suspensions. In more details.
Denote by 𝒫 the class of the Morse-Smale diffeomorphisms of 3-sphere S3 whose non-wondering set consists of the fixed source α, the fixed saddle σ and the fixed sinks ω1, ω2. Class 𝒫 diffeomorphism phase portrait is shown in Figure 1.

The phase portrait of a diffeomorphism of class 𝒫
Citation: Applied Mathematics and Nonlinear Sciences 5, 2; 10.2478/amns.2020.2.00049
As the Pixton's example belongs to this class we call it the Pixton class. That example is characterized by the wild embedding of the stable manifold

The phase portrait of a non-trivial diffeomorphism of class 𝒫
Citation: Applied Mathematics and Nonlinear Sciences 5, 2; 10.2478/amns.2020.2.00049
Let 𝒫t be a set of flows which are suspensions on Pixton's diffeomorphisms. By the construction the ambient manifold for every such flow ft is diffeomorphic to S3 × S1 and the non-wandering set consists of exactly four periodic orbits 𝒪α, 𝒪σ, 𝒪ω1, 𝒪ω2. Let
Theorem 1. If
Corollary 2. (Existence theorem) There is a flow ft with saddle orbit 𝒪σ such that
Theorem 3. Two flows ft, f′t ∈ 𝒫t are topologically equivalent iff the diffeomorphisms f, f′ ∈ 𝒫 are topologically conjugated.
The complete classification of diffeomorphisms from the class 𝒫 has been done by Ch. Bonatti and V. Grines [1]. They proved that a complete invariant for Pixton's diffeomorphism is an equivalent class of the embedding of a knot in S2 × S1. In section 4 we briefly give another idea to classify such systems. It was described in [5] and led to complete classification on Morse-Smale 3-diffeomorphisms in [2].
Acknowledgement: The authors are partially supported by Laboratory of Dynamical Systems and Applications NRU HSE, of the Ministry of science and higher education of the RF grant ag. No. 075-15-2019-1931. The auxiliary facts was implemented in the framework of the Basic Research Program at the National Research University Higher School of Economics (HSE University) in 2019.
2 Auxiliary facts
2.1 Dynamical concepts
Diffeomorphism f : Mn → Mn of smooth closed connected orientable n-manifold (n ≥ 1)Mn is called Morse-Smale diffeomorphism (f ∈ MS(Mn)) if:
- Non-wandering set Ωf is finite and hyperbolic;
- Stable and unstable manifolds
, intersect transversally for any periodic points p, q.
Two diffeomorphisms f, f′ are called topologically conjugated if there exists a homeomorphism h : Mn → Mn such that f h = h f′.
When f ∈ MS(Mn) the non-wandering set of the suspension ft consist of a finite number of periodic orbits composed by pW(Ωf × ℝ). The obtained flow is so-called non-singular, what means it has no singular points.
Two flows ft, f′t are called topologically equivalent if exists a homeomorphism h : W → W which maps the trajectories of ft to trajectories of f′t and preservs orientation on the trajectories.
2.2 Topological concepts
A closed subset X of a PL-manifold N is said to be tame if there is a homeomorphism h : N → N such that h(X) is a subpolyhedron; the other are called wild.
For example, Fox-Artin arc is wild (see [4]).
Let A be a closed subset of a metric space X. A is called locally k-co-connected in X at a ∈ A (k-LCC at a) if each neighbourhood U of a in X contains a smaller neighbourhood V of a such that each map ∂Ik+1 → V \ A extends to a map Ik+1 → U \ A.
We say that A is locally k-co-connected (k-LCC in X) if A is k-LCC at a for each a ∈ A.
For example, Fox-Artin 2-sphere is not 1-LCC (see Exercise 2.8.1 [3]).
Let e: Mm → Nn be a topological embedding of m-dimensional manifold Mm with a boundary in n-manifold Nn (n ≥ m). e is called locally flat at x ∈ Mm (and e(Mm) is locally flat at e(x)) if there exist a neighbourhood U of e(x) ∈ Nn and a homeomorphism h of U onto ℝn such that:
- (1)h(U ∩ e(Mm)) = ℝm ⊂ ℝnwhen x ∈ int Mm or
- (2)
when x ∈ ∥Mm.
Since tameness implies local flatness for embeddings of manifolds in all co-dimensionals except two, we will say that e: Mm → Nn, m ≠ n − 2 is wild at e(x) when e(Mm) is fails to be locally flat at e(x).
Proposition 4 (Proposition 1.3.1 [3]). Suppose the manifold Mn−1is locally flatly embedded in the n-manifold Nn. Then Mn−1is k-LCC in Nn for all k ≥ 1.
Proposition 5 (Proposition 1.3.6 [3]). Suppose Y is a locally contractible space and A ⊂ X. Then A is k-LCC in X iff A × Y is k-LCC in X × Y.
Notice that any manifold is a locally contractible space.
3 Wildness of the stable manifold of the saddle periodic orbit for the suspension
Let f be a non-trivial Pixton's diffeomorphism. Then the closure of the stable manifold
4 Topological classification of suspensions
Firstly we give a brief idea of the topological classification of diffeomorphisms from class 𝒫.
4.1 Classification of diffeomorphisms from 𝒫
Let f ∈ 𝒫 and

The complete invariants for trivial and non-trivial Pixton's diffeomorphisms
Citation: Applied Mathematics and Nonlinear Sciences 5, 2; 10.2478/amns.2020.2.00049

The vector field and
Citation: Applied Mathematics and Nonlinear Sciences 5, 2; 10.2478/amns.2020.2.00049
Proposition 6 (Theorem 4.5 [5]). Diffeomorphisms f, f′ ∈ 𝒫 are topologically conjugated iff the tori
4.2 Proof of the sufficiency of Theorem 3
Let f, f′ ∈ 𝒫. Recall the notion of the suspensions of f, f′.
Let g, g′ : S3 × ℝ → S3 × ℝ be diffeomorphisms given by the formulas g(x, r) = (f (x), r − 1), g′(x, r) = (f′ (x), r − 1). Let G = {gk, k ∈ ℤ}, G′ = {g′k, k ∈ ℤ} and W = (S3 × ℝ)/G, W′ = (S3 × ℝ)/G′. Since f, f ′ preserve orientation of S3, W, W′ are diffeomorphic to S3 × S1. Denote pW : S3 × ℝ → W, pW′ : S3 × ℝ → W ′ the natural projections. It is verified directly that gφt = φtg, g′φt = φtg′. Then maps ft : W → W, f′t : W′ → W′ given by the formulas
Since
4.3 Proof of necessity of Theorem 3
Let suspensions ft, f′t be topologically equivalent by means of a homeomorphism H : S3 × S1 → S3 × S1. Let us prove that then the diffeomorphisms f, f′ are topologically conjugate.
It follows from the definition of suspension that
Since H realizes an equivalence of the flows ft, f′t then H(Σ) is also a section for trajectories of the flows f′t in Vf′t. Thus we can get Σ′ from H(Σ) by a continuous shift along the trajectories, that is there is a homeomorphism ψ : Vf′t → Vf′t which preserves the trajectories of f′t in Vf′t and such that ψ(H(Σ)) = Σ′. Let hΣ = ψH|Σ : Σ → Σ′.
Then
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