The stability of a fixed point of an area-preserving transformation in the plane is characterized by the invariant curves which surround it. The existence of invariant curves had been extensively studied for elliptic fixed points. Here we study the similar problem for parabolic fixed points. In particular we are interested in the case where the fixed point is at infinity.

A fixed point of an area-preserving mapping of the plane is called elliptic if the eigenvalues of its linearization are of unit modulus but not ±1; it is parabolic if both eigenvalues are 1 or −1. The elliptic case is well understood by Moser's theory. Here we study when is a parabolic fixed point surrounded by closed invariant curves. We approximate our mapping T by the phase flow of an Hamiltonian system. A pair of variables, closely related to the action-angle variables, is used to reduce T into a twist mapping. The conditions for T to have closed invariant curves are stated in terms of the Hamiltonian.

We identify a set of generators for the automorphism group of the one-sided d-shift. For the 3-shift, this set of generators has an application to the dynamics of cubic polynomials.

Motivated by the close relation between Aubry-Mather theory and minimal geodesies on a 2-torus we study the existence and properties of minimal geodesics in compact Riemannian manifolds of dimension ≥3. We prove that there exist minimal geodesics with certain rotation vectors and that there are restrictions on the rotation vectors of arbitrary minimal geodesics. A detailed analysis of the minimal geodesics of the ‘Hedlund examples’ shows that – to a certain extent – our results are optimal.

We show that the pseudo-Anosov diflEeomorphisms have a kind of stability even outside their own homotopy class, this generalizes some results of Lewowicz and Handel. As a corollary, we show that two pseudo-Anosov maps, with the same dilatation coefficient, which are semi-conjugate on the π1 level are also semiconjugate as dynamical systems by a map which is a ramified cover.

We study families of diffeomorphisms close to the identity, which tend to it when the parameter goes to zero, and having homoclinic points. We consider the analytical case and we find that the maximum separation between the invariant manifolds, in a given region, is exponentially small with respect to the parameter. The exponent is related to the complex singularities of a flow which is taken as an unperturbed problem. Finally several examples are given.

We consider families of differentiable diffeomorphisms with hyperbolic points, close to the identity, which tend to it when the parameter goes to zero.

We study the asymptotic behaviour of the invariant manifolds. Then we consider the case when there are homo-heteroclinic points and we find that the maximum separation between the invariant manifolds is of the order of some power of the parameter which is related to the degree of differentiability.

Finally the analogous case for flows is considered.

We prove the meromorphicity of the zeta function on shifts of finite type for Hölder continuous functions assuming that the essential spectrum of the associated Ruelle operator is contained in the open unit disc. This result allows to extend the region of meromorphicity of the zeta function for Axiom A flows by a strip whose width is determined by the contraction rate of the flow.

Let C denote the space of continuous functions mapping [0,1] into itself and endowed with the sup metric. It has been shown that C2 = {f ∘ f: ∈ C} is an analytic but non-Borel subset of C. This implies that there is no simple geometric characterization for a function being a square. In this paper we consider the problem of characterizing those functions which can be approximated by squares. In the first section we prove that any continuous function mapping a closed proper subset of [0,1 ] into [0,1 ] can be extended to a square. In particular this shows that C2 is Lp dense in C. On the other hand, C2 does not contain a ball when C is endowed with the sup metric. In the second section we prove that no strictly decreasing function can be uniformly approximated by squares, although the distance between the class of strictly decreasing functions and C2 is zero. In the last section we investigate the function f(x) = 1 − x and show that for every g ∈ C and that ¼ cannot be improved.

The Livshitz theorem reported in 1971 asserts that any C1 function having zero integrals over all periodic orbits of a topologically transitive Anosov flow is a derivative of another C1 function in the direction of the flow. Similar results for functions of higher differentiability have also appeared since. In this paper we prove a ‘finite version’ of the Livshitz theorem for a certain class of Anosov flows on 3-dimensional manifolds which include geodesic flows on negatively curved surfaces as a special case.

We prove the decidability of shift equivalence of sofic systems and discuss algebraic invariants.

Let p and q be relatively prime natural numbers. Define T0 and S0 to be multiplication by p and q (mod 1) respectively, endomorphisms of [0,1).

Let μ be a borel measure invariant for both T0 and S0 and ergodic for the semigroup they generate. We show that if μ is not Lebesgue measure, then with respect to μ both T0 and S0 have entropy zero. Equivalently, both T0 and S0 are μ-almost surely invertible.