Chain recurrence rates and topological entropy

We investigate the properties of chain recurrent, chain transitive, and chain mixing maps (generalizations of the well-known notions of non-wandering, topologically transitive, and topologically mixing maps). We describe the structure of chain transitive maps. These notions of recurrence are defined using ε-chains, and the minimal lengths of these ε-chains give a way to measure recurrence time (chain recurrence and chain mixing times). We give upper and lower bounds for these recurrence times and relate the chain mixing time to topological entropy.