Stable foliations and CW-structure induced by a Morse-Smale gradient-like flow

Abstract: We prove that a Morse-Smale gradient-like flow on a closed manifold has a "system of compatible invariant stable foliations" that is analogous to the object introduced by Palis and Smale in their proof of the structural stability of Morse-Smale diffeomorphisms and flows, but with finer regularity and geometric properties. We show how these invariant foliations can be used in order to give a self-contained proof of the well-known but quite delicate theorem stating that the unstable manifolds of a Morse-Smale gradient-like flow on a closed manifold $M$ are the open cells of a $CW$-decomposition of $M$.