We study the evolution of homogeneous Ricci solitons under the bracket flow, a dynamical system on the space of all homogeneous spaces of dimension n with a q-dimensional isotropy, which is equivalent to the Ricci flow for homogeneous manifolds. We prove that algebraic solitons (i.e. the Ricci operator is a multiple of the identity plus a derivation) are precisely the fixed points of the system, and that a homogeneous Ricci soliton is isometric to an algebraic soliton if and only if the corresponding bracket flow solution is not chaotic, in the sense that its omega-limit set consists of a single point. We also geometrically characterize algebraic solitons among homogeneous Ricci solitons as those for which the Ricci flow solution is simultaneously diagonalizable.

18 pages, one figure