Schwarz showed that when a closed symplectic manifold (M,\om) is symplectically aspherical (i.e. the symplectic form and the first Chern class vanish on π_2(M)) then the spectral invariants, which are initially defined on the universal cover of the Hamiltonian group, descend to the Hamiltonian group Ham (M,\om). In this note we describe less stringent conditions on the Chern class and quantum homology of M under which the (asymptotic) spectral invariants descend to Ham (M,\om). For example, they descend if the quantum multiplication of M is undeformed and H_2(M) has rank >1, or if the minimal Chern number is at least n+1 (where \dim M=2n) and the even cohomology of M is generated by divisors. The proofs are based on certain calculations of genus zero Gromov--Witten invariants.
As an application, we show that the Hamiltonian group of the one point blow up of T^4 admits a Calabi quasimorphism. Moreover, whenever the (asymptotic) spectral invariants descend it is easy to see that Ham (M,\om) has infinite diameter in the Hofer norm. Hence our results establish the infinite diameter of Ham in many new cases. We also show that the area pseudonorm -- a geometric version of the Hofer norm -- is nontrivial on the (compactly supported) Hamiltonian group for all noncompact manifolds as well as for a large class of closed manifolds.
These are notes from lectures given at the Clay Institute Summer School on "Floer homology, gauge theory and low-dimensional topology" (Budapest, 2004). The first part describes as background some of the geometry of symplectic fibre bundles and their monodromy. The second part, overviewing joint work with Paul Seidel, applies these general ideas and Floer cohomology to certain fibre bundles that arise naturally in Lie theory. This constructs an invariant of oriented links in the three-sphere which is conjecturally equal to Khovanov's combinatorial homology theory.
We construct the vortex Floer homology group $VHF (M,μ;H)$ for an aspherical Hamiltonian $G$-manifold $(M, ω)$ with moment map $μ$ and a class of $G$-invariant Hamiltonian loop $H_t$, following the proposal of [3]. This is a substitute for the ordinary Hamiltonian Floer homology of the symplectic quotient of $M$. We achieve the transversality of the moduli space by the classical perturbation argument instead of the virtual technique, so the homology can be defined over ${\mathbb Z}$ or ${\mathbb Z}_2$.
This paper extends the definition of Rabinowitz Floer homology to non-compact hypersurfaces. We present a general framework for the construction of Rabinowitz Floer homology in the non-compact setting under suitable compactness assumptions on the periodic orbits and the moduli spaces of Floer trajectories. We introduce a class of hypersurfaces being the level sets of specific Hamiltonians: strongly tentacular Hamiltonians, for which the compactness conditions are satisfied, thus enabling us to define the Rabinowitz Floer homology for this class. Rabinowitz Floer homology in turn serves as a to…
For an aspherical symplectic manifold, closed or with convex contact boundary, and with vanishing first Chern class, a Floer chain complex is defined for Hamiltonians linear at infinity with coefficients in the group ring of the fundamental group. For two non-degenerate Hamiltonians of the same slope continuation maps are shown to be simple homotopy equivalences. As a corollary the number of contractible Hamiltonian orbits of period 1 can be bounded from below.
The focus of the paper is the behavior under iterations of the filtered and local Floer homology of a Hamiltonian on a symplectically aspherical manifold. The Floer homology of an iterated Hamiltonian comes with a natural cyclic group action. In the filtered case, we show that the supertrace of a generator of this action is equal to the Euler characteristic of the homology of the un-iterated Hamiltonian. For the local homology the supertrace is the Lefschetz index of the fixed point. We also prove an analog of the classical Smith inequality for the iterated local homology and the equivariant v…
Localization of Floer homology is first introduced by Floer \cite{floer:fixed} in the context of Hamiltonian Floer homology. The author employed the notion in the Lagrangian context for the pair $(ϕ_H^1(L),L)$ of compact Lagrangian submanifolds in tame symplectic manifolds $(M,ω)$ in \cite{oh:newton,oh:imrn} for a compact Lagrangian submanifold $L$ and $C^2$-small Hamiltonian $H$. In this article, motivated by the study of topological Hamiltonian dynamics, we extend the localization process for any engulfable Hamiltonian path $ϕ_H$ whose time-one map $ϕ_H^1$ is sufficiently $C^0$-close to the …
We construct absolute and relative versions of Hamiltonian Floer homology algebras for strongly semi-positive compact symplectic manifolds with convex boundary, where the ring structures are given by the appropriate versions of the pair-of-pants products. We establish the absolute and relative Piunikhin-Salamon-Schwarz isomorphisms between these Floer homology algebras and the corresponding absolute and relative quantum homology algebras. As a result, the absolute and relative analogues of the spectral invariants on the group of compactly supported Hamiltonian diffeomorphisms are defined.
We prove that the Knot Floer homology group of a fibred knot of genus g in the Alexander grading 1-g is isomorphic to a version of the fixed point Floer homology of an area-preserving representative of the monodromy.
In this paper we first apply the chain level Floer theory to the study of Hofer's geometry of Hamiltonian diffeomorphism group in the cases without quantum contribution: we prove that any quasi-autonomous Hamiltonian path on weakly exact symplectic manifolds or any autonomous Hamiltonian path on arbitrary symplectic manifolds is length minimizing in its homotopy class with fixed ends, as long as it has a fixed maximum and a fixed minimum which are not over-twisted and all of its contractible periodic orbits of period less than one are sufficiently $C^1$-small. Next we give a construction of ne…
We define a version of spectral invariant in the vortex Floer theory for a $G$-Hamiltonian manifold $M$. This defines potentially new (partial) symplectic quasi-morphism and quasi-states when $M//G$ is not semi-positive. We also establish a relation between vortex Hamiltonian Floer homology and Woodward's quasimap Floer homology by constructing a closed-open string map between them. This yields applications to study non-displaceability problems of subsets in $M//G$
If $K$ is a fibered knot in a closed, oriented $3$--manifold $Y$ with fiber $F$, and $\widehat{HFK}(Y,K,[F], g(F)-1;\mathbb Z/2\mathbb Z)$ has rank $r$, then the monodromy of $K$ is freely isotopic to a diffeomorphism with at most $r-1$ fixed points. This generalizes earlier work of Baldwin--Hu--Sivek and Ni. We also clarify a misleading formula in Cotton-Clay's computation of the symplectic Floer homology of mapping classes of surfaces.
We show that the Hamiltonian Lagrangian monodromy group, in its homological version, is trivial for any weakly exact Lagrangian submanifold of a symplectic manifold. The proof relies on a sheaf approach to Floer homology given by a relative Seidel morphism.
We assign to each nondegenerate Hamiltonian on a closed symplectic manifold a Floer-theoretic quantity called its "boundary depth," and establish basic results about how the boundary depths of different Hamiltonians are related. As applications, we prove that certain Hamiltonian symplectomorphisms supported in displaceable subsets have infinitely many nontrivial geometrically distinct periodic points, and we also significantly expand the class of coisotropic submanifolds which are known to have positive displacement energy. For instance, any coisotropic submanifold of contact type (in the sens…
In this paper, we apply spectral invariants, constructed in [Oh5,8], to the study of Hamiltonian diffeomorphisms of closed symplectic manifolds $(M,ω)$. Using spectral invariants, we first construct an invariant norm called the {\it spectral norm} on the Hamiltonian diffeomorphism group and obtain several lower bounds for the spectral norm in terms of the $\e$-regularity theorem and the symplectic area of certain pseudo-holomorphic curves. We then apply spectral invariants to the study of length minimizing properties of certain Hamiltonian paths {\it among all paths}. In addition to the constr…
We develop a family of deformations of the differential and of the pair-of-pants product on the Hamiltonian Floer complex of a symplectic manifold (M,ω) which upon passing to homology yields ring isomorphisms with the big quantum homology of M. By studying the properties of the resulting deformed version of the Oh-Schwarz spectral invariants, we obtain a Floer-theoretic interpretation of a result of Lu which bounds the Hofer-Zehnder capacity of M when M has a nonzero Gromov-Witten invariant with two point constraints, and we produce a new algebraic criterion for (M,ω) to admit a Calabi quasimo…
We fill a gap in the proof of the transversality result for quilted Floer trajectories in arXiv:0905.1370 by addressing trajectories for which some but not all components are constant. Namely we show that for generic sets of split Hamiltonian perturbations and split almost complex structures, the moduli spaces of parametrized quilted Floer trajectories of a given index are smooth of expected dimension. An additional benefit of the generic split Hamiltonian perturbations is that they perturb the given cyclic Lagrangian correspondence such that any geometric composition of its factors is transve…
We construct a version of Hamiltonian Floer Homology based on the notion of a semi-infinite cycle. As an application, we provide a new proof for the existence of critical points of the action functional.
In this paper we connect algebraic properties of the pair-of-pants product in local Floer homology and Hamiltonian dynamics. We show that for an isolated periodic orbit the product is non-uniformly nilpotent and use this fact to give a simple proof of the Conley conjecture for closed manifolds with aspherical symplectic form. More precisely, we prove that on a closed symplectic manifold the mean action spectrum of a Hamiltonian diffeomorphism with isolated periodic orbits is infinite.
The objective of this note is to prove an existence result for brake orbits in classical Hamiltonian systems (which was first proved by S.V.Bolotin) by using Floer theory. To this end, we compute an open string analogue of symplectic homology (so called wrapped Floer homology) of some domains in cotangent bundles, which appear naturally in the study of classical Hamiltonian systems. The main part of the computations is to show invariance of wrapped Floer homology under certain handle attaching to domains.
Let (M,ω) be a compact symplectic manifold, and ϕbe a symplectic diffeomorphism on M, we define a Floer-type homology FH_*(ϕ) which is a gen- eralization of Floer homology for symplectic fixed points defined by Dostoglou and Salamon for monotone symplectic manifolds. These homology groups are modules over a suitable Novikov ring and depend only on ϕup to a Hamiltonian isotopy.
Spectral invariant were introduced in Hamiltonian Floer homology by Viterbo, Oh, and Schwarz. We extend this concept to Rabinowitz Floer homology. As an application we derive new quantitative existence results for leaf-wise intersections. The importance of spectral invariants for the presented application is that spectral invariants allow us to derive existence of critical points of the Rabinowitz action functional even in degenerate situations where the functional is not Morse.
We define partial quasi-morphisms on the group of Hamiltonian diffeomorphisms of the cotangent bundle using the spectral invariants in Lagrangian Floer homology with conormal boundary conditions, where the product compatible with the PSS isomorphism and the homological intersection product is lacking.
We study a local-to-global inequality for spectral invariants of Hamiltonians whose supports have a ``large enough" tubular neighborhood on semipositive symplectic manifolds. In particular, we present the first examples of such an inequality when the Hamiltonians are not necessarily supported in domains with contact type boundaries, or when the ambient manifold is irrational. This extends a series of previous works studying locality phenomena of spectral invariants. A main new tool is a lower bound, in the spirit of Sikorav, for the energy of Floer trajectories that cross the tubular neighborh…
Consider the cotangent bundle of a closed Riemannian manifold and an almost complex structure close to the one induced by the Riemannian metric. For Hamiltonians which grow for instance quadratically in the fibers outside of a compact set, one can define Floer homology and show that it is naturally isomorphic to singular homology of the free loop space. We review the three isomorphisms constructed by Viterbo (1996), Salamon-Weber (2003) and Abbondandolo-Schwarz (2004). The theory is illustrated by calculating Morse and Floer homology in case of the euclidean n-torus. Applications include exist…
Floer theory relates the dynamics of Hamiltonian isotopies and the homology of the ambient manifold. It was extended to similarly relate the dynamics of symplectic isotopies and the Novikov homology associated to their flux. We discuss this picture regarding the fundamental group, and prove that when the flux is not too big, the associated Novikov fundamental group is generated by Floer moduli spaces associated to closed orbits of the symplectic isotopy.
A $g$-tuple of disjoint, linearly independent circles in a Riemann surface of genus $g$ determines a `Heegaard torus' in its $g$-fold symmetric product. Changing the circles by a handleslide produces a new torus. It is proved that, for symplectic forms with certain properties, these two tori are Hamiltonian-isotopic Lagrangian submanifolds. This provides an alternative route to the handleslide-invariance of Ozsvath-Szabo's Heegaard Floer homology.
We define an index for the critical points of parametrized Hamiltonian action functionals. The expected dimension of moduli spaces of parametrized Floer trajectories equals the difference of indices of the asymptotes.
We define the Floer complex for Hamiltonian orbits on the cotangent bundle of a compact manifold satisfying non-local conormal boundary conditions. We prove that the homology of this chain complex is isomorphic to the singular homology of the natural path space associated to the boundary conditions.
This paper represents a first step towards the extension of the definition of Rabinowitz Floer homology to non-compact energy hypersurfaces in exact symplectic manifolds. More concretely, we study under which conditions it is possible to establish $L^{\infty}$-bounds for the Floer trajectories of a Hamiltonian with non-compact energy levels. Moreover, we introduce a class of Hamiltonians, called tentacular Hamiltonians, which satisfy the conditions: how to define RFH for these examples will be the subject of a follow-up paper.
A closed braid naturally gives rise to a transverse link in the standard contact 3-space. We study the effect of the dynamical properties of the braid monodromy, such as right-veering, on the contact-topological properties of the transverse link and its transverse invariants in knot Floer and Khovanov homologies. In particular, we show that a 3-braid is right-veering if and only if the (hat-version of) the Heegaard Floer transverse invariant is non-zero. For higher-index braids, we show that this invariant is non-zero whenever the braid monodromy has the fractional Dehn twist coefficient C>1. …
In this article, we consider the Floer cohomology (with $\Z_2$ coefficients) between torus fibers and the real Lagrangian in Fano toric manifolds. We first investigate the conditions under which the Floer cohomology is defined, and then develop a combinatorial description of the Floer complex based on the polytope of the toric manifold. We show that if the Floer cohomology is defined, and the Floer cohomology of the torus fiber is non-zero, then the Floer cohomology of the pair is non-zero. We use this result to develop some applications to non-displaceability and the minimum number of interse…
This text is a set of lecture notes for a series of four talks given at I.P.A.M., Los Angeles, on March 18-20, 2003. The first lecture provides a quick overview of symplectic topology and its main tools: symplectic manifolds, almost-complex structures, pseudo-holomorphic curves, Gromov-Witten invariants and Floer homology. The second and third lectures focus on symplectic Lefschetz pencils: existence (following Donaldson), monodromy, and applications to symplectic topology, in particular the connection to Gromov-Witten invariants of symplectic 4-manifolds (following Smith) and to Fukaya catego…
We explain how to adapt the methods of Abouzaid-McLean-Smith to the setting of Hamiltonian Floer theory. We develop a language around equivariant ``$\langle k \rangle$-manifolds'', which are a type of manifold-with-corners that suffices to capture the combinatorics of Floer-theoretic constructions. We describe some geometry which allows us to straightforwardly adapt Lashofs's stable equivariant smoothing theory and Bau-Xu's theory of FOP-perturbations to $\langle k \rangle$-manifolds. This allows us to compatibly smooth global Kuranishi charts on all Hamiltonian Floer trajectories at once, in …
We prove the existence of infinitely many time-periodic solutions of nonlinear Schrödinger equations using pseudo-holomorphic curve methods from Hamiltonian Floer theory. For the generalization of the Gromov-Floer compactness theorem to infinite dimensions, we show how to solve the arising small divisor problem by combining elliptic methods with results from the theory of diophantine approximations.
In this paper, Hamiltonian monodromy is studied from the point of view of geometric quantization abd theta functions, and various differential geometric aspects thereof are dealt with, all related to holonomies of suitable flat connections.
The first author introduced a relative symplectic capacity $C$ for a symplectic manifold $(N,ω_N)$ and its subset $X$ which measures the existence of non-contractible periodic trajectories of Hamiltonian isotopies on the product of $N$ with the annulus $A_R=(R,R)\times\mathbb{R}/\mathbb{Z}$. In the present paper, we give an exact computation of the capacity $C$ of the $2n$-torus $\mathbb{T}^{2n}$ relative to a Lagrangian submanifold $\mathbb{T}^n$ which implies the existence of non-contractible Hamiltonian periodic trajectories on $A_R\times\mathbb{T}^{2n}$. Moreover, we give a lower bound on …
We show that blow-ups or reverse flips (in the sense of the minimal model program) of rational symplectic manifolds with point centers create Floer-non-trivial Lagrangian tori. As applications, we demonstrate the existence of Hamiltonian non-displaceable Lagrangian tori in, for example, small symplectic blow-ups of compact symplectic manifolds and moduli spaces of polygons. These results are part of a conjectural description of generators for the Fukaya category of a compact symplectic manifold with a singularity-free running of the minimal model program.
By coupling a Hamiltonian mechanical system with a linear Hamiltonian field theory one obtains an infinite-dimensional Hamiltonian system with regularizing nonlinearity, where the underlying phase space is given by the product of a finite-dimensional symplectic manifold with an infinite-dimensional linear symplectic Hilbert space. After our compactness results we continue our program for defining a Floer homology theory for this class of infinite-dimensional Hamiltonian systems. Based on the presence of small divisors we introduce a new notion of nondegeneracy for time-periodic solutions which…
