Orbit equivalence, flow equivalence and ordered cohomology

Abstract

We study self-homeomorphisms of zero dimensional metrizable compact Hausdorff spaces by means of the ordered first cohomology group, particularly in the light of the recent work of Giordano Putnam, and Skau on minimal homeomorphisms. We show that flow equivalence of systems is analogous to Morita equivalence between algebras, and this is reflected in the ordered cohomology group. We show that the ordered cohomology group is a complete invariant for flow equivalence between irreducible shifts of finite type; it follows that orbit equivalence implies flow equivalence for this class of systems. The cohomology group is the (pre-ordered) Grothendieck group of the C*-algebra crossed product, and we can decide when the pre-ordering is an ordering, in terms of dynamical properties.