On the number of heteroclinic curves of diffeomorphisms with surface dynamics

Abstract

Separators are fundamental plasma physics objects that play an important role in many astrophysical phenomena. Looking for separators and their number is one of the first steps in studying the topology of the magnetic field in the solar corona. In the language of dynamical systems, separators are noncompact heteroclinic curves. In this paper we give an exact lower estimation of the number of noncompact heteroclinic curves for a 3-diffeomorphism with the so-called “surface dynamics”. Also, we prove that ambient manifolds for such diffeomorphisms are mapping tori.