Entropy-minimising models of surface diffeomorphisms relative to homoclinic and heteroclinic orbits

In the theory of surface diffeomorphisms relative to homoclinic and heteroclinic orbits, it is possible to compute a one-dimensional representative map for any irreducible isotopy class. The topological entropy of this graph representative is equal to the growth rate of the number of essential Nielsen classes of a given period, and hence is a lower bound for the topological entropy of the diffeomorphism. In this paper, we show that this entropy bound is the infemum of the topological entropies of diffeomorphisms in the isotopy class, and give necessary and sufficient conditions for the infemal entropy to be a minimum.