Symbolic dynamics and nonlinear semiflows

Summary For a transverse homoclinic orbit of a mapping (not necessarily invertible) on a Banach space, it is shown that the mapping restricted to orbits near is equivalent to the shift automorphism on doubly infinite sequences on finitely many symbols. Implications of this result for the Poincaré map of semiflows are given.This work was supported by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research under Grant #81-0198, by the National Science Foundation under Grant #MCS-8205355 and by the Army Research Office under Grant ù DAAG-29-83-K-0029.