We present a new construction of the entropy-maximizing, invariant probability measure on a Smale space (the Bowen measure). Our construction is based on points that are unstably equivalent to one given point, and stably equivalent to another: heteroclinic points. The spirit of the construction is similar to Bowen's construction from periodic points, though the techniques are very different. We also prove results about the growth rate of certain sets of heteroclinic points, and about the stable and unstable components of the Bowen measure. The approach we take is to prove results through direct computation for the case of a Shift of Finite type, and then use resolving factor maps to extend the results to more general Smale spaces.

We study the case of an Axiom A holomorphic non-degenerate (hence non-invertible) map $f\from\mathbb P^2 \mathbb C \to \mathbb P^2 \mathbb C$, where $\mathbb P^2 \mathbb C$ stands for the complex projective space of dimension 2. Let $\Lambda$ denote a basic set for $f$ of unstable index 1, and $x$ an arbitrary point of $\Lambda$; we denote by $\delta^s(x)$ the Hausdorff dimension of $W^s_r(x) \cap \Lambda$, where $r$ is some fixed positive number and $W^s_r(x)$ is the local stable manifold at $x$ of size $r$; $\delta^s(x)$ is called \emph{the stable dimension at} $x$. Mihailescu and Urba\'nski introduced a notion of inverse topological pressure, denoted by $P^-$, which takes into consideration preimages of points. Manning and McCluskey study the case of hyperbolic diffeomorphisms on real surfaces and give formulas for Hausdorff dimension. Our non-invertible situation is different here since the local unstable manifolds are not uniquely determined by their base point, instead they depend in general on whole prehistories of the base points. Hence our methods are different and are based on using a sequence of inverse pressures for the iterates of $f$, in order to give upper and lower estimates of the stable dimension. We obtain an estimate of the oscillation of the stable dimension on $\Lambda$. When each point $x$ from $\Lambda$ has the same number $d'$ of preimages in $\Lambda$, then we show that $\delta^s(x)$ is independent of $x$; in fact $\delta^s(x)$ is shown to be equal in this case with the unique zero of the map $t \to P(t\phi^s - \log d')$. We also prove the Lipschitz continuity of the stable vector spaces over $\Lambda$; this proof is again different than the one for diffeomorphisms (however, the unstable distribution is not always Lipschitz for conformal non-invertible maps). In the end we include the corresponding results for a real conformal setting.