A triple boundary lemma for surface homeomorphisms

Abstract

Given an orientation-preserving and area-preserving homeomorphism $f$ of the sphere, we prove that every point which is in the common boundary of three pairwise disjoint invariant open topological disks must be a fixed point. As an application, if $K$ is an invariant Wada type continuum, then $f^n{|}_K$ is the identity for some $n>0$. Another application is an elementary proof of the fact that invariant disks for a nonwandering homeomorphisms homotopic to the identity in an arbitrary surface are homotopically bounded if the fixed point set is inessential. The main results in this article are self-contained.

Minor corrections. To appear in Proc. Amer. Math. Soc