Chaotic sets of continuous and discontinuous maps

This paper discusses Li-Yorke chaotic sets of continuous and discontinuous maps with particular emphasis to shift and subshift maps. Scrambled sets and maximal scrambled sets are introduced to characterize Li-Yorke chaotic sets. The orbit invariant for a scrambled set is discussed. Some properties about maximality, equivalence and uniqueness of maximal scrambled sets are also discussed. It is shown that for shift maps the set of all scrambled pairs has full measure and chaotic sets of some discontinuous maps, such as the Gauss map, interval exchange transformations, and a class of planar piecewise isometries, are studied. Finally, some open problems on scrambled sets are listed and remarked. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.