Forcing relations for homoclinic and periodic orbits of the Smale horseshoe map

Abstract

An important problem in the dynamics of surface homeomorphisms is determining the forcing relation between orbits. The forcing relation between periodic orbits can be computed using standard algorithms, though this does not give much information on the structure of the forcing relation. Here we consider forcing relations between homoclinic orbits, and their relationships with periodic orbits. We outline a general procedure for computing the forcing relation, and apply this to compute the equivalence and forcing relations for homoclinic orbits of the Smale horseshoe map. We also outline a method for determining forcing relations from graph maps, which allows us to compute the forcing relation between the so-called star homoclinic orbits.