Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 November 2014
Let $(X,f)$ be a dynamical system, where $X$ is a perfect Polish space and $f:X\rightarrow X$ is a continuous map. In this paper we study the invariant dependent sets of a given relation string ${\it\alpha}=\{R_{1},R_{2},\ldots \}$ on $X$. To do so, we need the relation string ${\it\alpha}$ to satisfy some dynamical properties, and we say that ${\it\alpha}$ is $f$-invariant (see Definition 3.1). We show that if ${\it\alpha}=\{R_{1},R_{2},\ldots \}$ is an $f$-invariant relation string and $R_{n}\subset X^{n}$ is a residual subset for each $n\geq 1$, then there exists a dense Mycielski subset $B\subset X$ such that the invariant subset $\bigcup _{i=0}^{\infty }f^{i}B$ is a dependent set of $R_{n}$ for each $n\geq 1$ (see Theorems 5.4 and 5.5). This result extends Mycielski’s theorem (see Theorem A) when $X$ is a perfect Polish space (see Corollary 5.6). Furthermore, in two applications of the main results, we simplify the proofs of known results on chaotic sets in an elegant way.