About the homological discrete Conley index of isolated invariant acyclic continua

Abstract

This article includes an almost self-contained exposition on the discrete Conley index and its duality. We work with a local homeomorphism of $\mathds{R}^d$ and an invariant and isolated acyclic continuum, such as a cellular set or a fixed point. In this setting, we obtain a complete description of the first discrete homological Conley index, which is periodic, that enforces a combinatorial behavior of higher indices. As a consequence, we prove that isolated (as an invariant set) fixed points of orientation-reversing homeomorphisms of $\mathds{R}^3$ have fixed point index $\le 1$ and, as a corollary, that there are no minimal orientation-reversing homeomorphisms in $\mathds{R}^3$.