On Morse–Smale diffeomorphisms on simply connected manifolds

We study relations between a structure of non-wandering set of a Morse–Smale diffeomorphism f and its carrying closed manifold Mn. We prove that if f has no any saddle periodic points with one-dimensional unstable manifolds, and for any periodic point σ of Morse index (n−1) its unstable manifolds do not intersect stable invariant manifolds of saddle periodic points different from σ, then Mn is simply connected. This fact does not follow from Morse inequalities that give only restrictions on homology groups of Mn.