Abstract. We use a notion (introduced in Topology 41 (2002), 1119-1212), which is stronger than the concept of filtration pair, to prove a stable/unstable manifold general theorem for local homeomorphisms of the plane in a neighborhood of an isolated fixed point.
Introduction and preliminary definitionsThe stable and unstable manifold theorem for hyperbolic diffeomorphisms plays a very important role in differential dynamics. At the topological level Baldwin and Slaminka proved, in [1], a stable/unstable manifold theorem for area-and orientationpreserving homeomorphisms of orientable 2-manifolds having isolated fixed points of index less than 1.There are many papers in the literature relating the fixed-point index of a homeomorphism f in a neighborhood of an isolated fixed point, and the local dynamical behavior of f . There are results in both directions, i.e. bounds (or explicit computation) for the fixed-point index from dynamical properties of f and how the knowledge of the fixed-point index can be applied to describe the dynamics locally. We will mention besides and Shub and Sullivan [22], for their relations with the present paper. Their results frequently deal with orientation-preserving homeomorphisms. The main reason for this assumption is the application of some version of Brouwer's lemma on translation arcs, see [5] or [7].The aim of this paper is to use the fixed-point index to obtain information about the dynamical behavior of a planar local homeomorphism in a neighborhood of an