Mildly dissipative diffeomorphisms of the disk with zero entropy

Abstract: We discuss the dynamics of smooth diffeomorphisms of the disc with vanishing topological entropy which satisfy the mild dissipation property introduced in [CP]. In particular it contains the H\'enon maps with Jacobian up to 1/4. We prove that these systems are either (generalized) Morse Smale or infinitely renormalizable. In particular we prove for this class of diffeomorphisms a conjecture of Tresser: any diffeomorphism in the interface between the sets of systems with zero and positive entropy admits doubling cascades. This generalizes for these surface dynamics a well known consequence of Sharkovskii's theorem for interval maps.