We give a generalization of Fukaya's Morse homotopy theoretic approach for 2-loop Chern--Simons perturbation theory to 3-valent graphs with arbitrary number of loops at least 2. We construct a sequence of invariants of integral homology 3-spheres with values in a space of 3-valent graphs (Jacobi diagrams or Feynman diagrams) by counting graphs in an integral homology 3-sphere satisfying certain condition described by a set of ordinary differential equations.
In this paper, it is explained that a topological invariant for 3-manifold $M$ with $b_1(M)=1$ can be constructed by applying Fukaya's Morse homotopy theoretic approach for Chern--Simons perturbation theory to a local system on $M$ of rational functions associated to the free abelian covering of $M$. Our invariant takes values in Garoufalidis--Rozansky's space of Jacobi diagrams whose edges are colored by rational functions. It is expected that our invariant gives a lot of nontrivial finite type invariants of 3-manifolds.
In this article we lay out the details of Fukaya's $A_\infty$-structure of the Morse complexe of a manifold possibly with boundary. We show that this $A_\infty$-structure is homotopically independent of the made choices. We emphasize the transversality arguments that make some fiber products smooth.
Let $M$ be a smooth closed orientable surface. Let $F$ be the space of Morse functions on $M$ having fixed number of critical points of each index, moreover at least $χ(M)+1$ critical points are labeled by different labels (enumerated). A notion of a skew cylindric-polyhedral complex, which generalizes the notion of a polyhedral complex, is introduced. The skew cylindric-polyhedral complex $\mathbb{\widetilde K}$ (the "complex of framed Morse functions"), associated with the space $F$, is defined. In the case when $M=S^2$, the polyhedron $\mathbb{\widetilde K}$ is finite; its Euler characteris…
Let $f$ be a real- or circle-valued Morse function on a compact surface M having exactly $n>0$ critical points. Denote by $O$ the orbit of $f$ with respect to the right action of the group of diffeomorphisms of $M$. We show that the connected components of $O$ have the homotopy type of a finite-dimensional CW-complex. Actually, these connected components are homotopy equivalent to a certain covering space of the $n$-th configuration space of the interior of $M$. As a consequence we obtain that the fundamental group of $O$ is a subgroup of the $n$-th braid group of $M$.
We pursue the analogy of a framed flow category with the flow data of a Morse function. In classical Morse theory, Morse functions can sometimes be locally altered and simplified by the Morse moves. These moves include the Whitney trick which removes two oppositely framed flowlines between critical points of adjacent index and handle cancellation which removes two critical points connected by a single flowline. A framed flow category is a way of encoding flow data such as that which may arise from the flowlines of a Morse function or of a Floer functional. The Cohen-Jones-Segal construction as…
We prove that the inclusion of every closed exact Lagrangian with vanishing Maslov class in a cotangent bundle is a homotopy equivalence. We start by adapting an idea of Fukaya-Seidel-Smith to prove that such a Lagrangian is equivalent to the zero section in the Fukaya category with integral coefficients. We then study an extension of the Fukaya category in which Lagrangians equipped with local systems of arbitrary dimension are admitted as objects, and prove that this extension is generated, in the appropriate sense, by local systems over a cotangent fibre. Whenever the cotangent bundle is si…
Given a J-holomorphic Morse function on a symplectic manifold, a new construction of the Fukaya-Seidel category is outlined. Applying this construction in an infinite dimensional case, a Fukaya-Seidel-type category is associated to a smooth three-manifold. In this case the construction is based on a five-dimensional gauge theory.
We study Morse theory on noncompact manifolds equipped with exhaustions by compact pieces, defining the Morse homology of a pair which consists of the manifold and related geometric/homotopy data. We construct a collection of Morse data parametrized by cubes of arbitrary dimensions. From this collection, we obtain a family of linear maps subject to some coherency conditions, which can be packaged into a homotopy coherent diagram. We introduce a chain complex which is a colimit for the diagram and show that it computes the Morse homology.
By studying spaces of flow graphs in a closed oriented manifold, we construct operations on its cohomology, parametrized by the homology of the moduli spaces of compact Riemann surfaces with boundary marked points. We show that the operations satisfy the gluing axiom of an open homological conformal field theory. This complements previous constructions due to R. Cohen et al., K. Costello and M. Kontsevich and is also the Morse theoretic counterpart to a conjectural construction of operations on the Lagrangian Floer homology of the zero section of a cotangent bundle, obtained by studying uncomp…
We elaborate on an idea of M. Abouzaid of equipping the Morse cochain complex of a smooth Morse function on a closed oriented manifold with the structure of an $A_\infty$-algebra. This is a variation on K. Fukaya's definition of Morse-$A_\infty$-categories for closed oriented manifolds involving families of Morse functions. The purpose of this article is to provide a coherent and detailed treatment of Abouzaid's approach including a discussion of all relevant analytic notions and results.
We introduce two tools, dynamical thickening and flow selectors, to overcome the infamous discontinuity of the gradient flow endpoint map near non-degenerate critical points. More precisely, we interpret the stable fibrations of certain Conley pairs $(N,L)$, established in [2,3], as a dynamical thickening of the stable manifold. As a first application and to illustrate efficiency of the concept we reprove a fundamental theorem of classical Morse theory, Milnor's homotopical cell attachment theorem [1]. Dynamical thickening leads to a conceptually simple and short proof.
The aim of this paper is to develop a refinement of Forman's discrete Morse theory. To an acyclic partial matching $μ$ on a finite regular CW complex $X$, Forman introduced a discrete analogue of gradient flows. Although Forman's gradient flow has been proved to be useful in practical computations of homology groups, it is not sufficient to recover the homotopy type of $X$. Forman also proved the existence of a CW complex which is homotopy equivalent to $X$ and whose cells are in one-to-one correspondence with the critical cells of $μ$, but the construction is ad hoc and does not have a combin…
We use the cobordism category constructed in arXiv:1703.01047 to the study the homotopy type of the space of positive scalar curvature metrics on a spin manifold of dimension > 4. Our methods give an alternative proof and extension of a recent theorem of Botvinnik, Ebert, and Randal-Williams from arXiv:1411.7408.
We describe a strategy for constructing reduced Khovanov homology for links in lens spaces by generalizing a symplectic interpretation of reduced Khovanov homology for links in $S^3$ due to Hedden, Herald, Hogancamp, and Kirk. The strategy relies on a partly conjectural description of the Fukaya category of the traceless $SU(2)$ character variety of the 2-torus with two punctures. From a diagram of a 1-tangle in a solid torus, we construct a corresponding object $(X,δ)$ in the $A_\infty$ category of twisted complexes over this Fukaya category. The homotopy type of $(X,δ)$ is an isotopy invaria…
Let $f:T^2\to\mathbb{R}$ be a Morse function on $2$-torus $T^2$ such that its Kronrod-Reeb graph $Γ(f)$ has exactly one cycle, i.e. it is homotopy equivalent to $S^1$. Under some additional conditions we describe a homotopy type of the orbit of $f$ with respect to the action of the group of diffeomorphism of $T^2$. This result holds for a larger class of smooth functions $f:T^2\to\mathbb{R}$ having the following property: for every critical point $z$ of $f$ the germ of $f$ at $z$ is smoothly equivalent to a homogeneous polynomial $\mathbb{R}^2\to\mathbb{R}$ without multiple factors.
Let $M$ be a smooth compact surface, orientable or not, with boundary or without it, $P$ either the real line $R^1$ or the circle $S^1$, and $Diff(M)$ the group of diffeomorphisms of $M$ acting on $C^{\infty}(M,P)$ by the rule $h\cdot f\mapsto f \circ h^{-1}$, where $h\in Diff(M)$ and $f \in C^{\infty}(M,P)$. Let $f:M \to P$ be a Morse function and $O(f)$ be the orbit of $f$ under this action. We prove that $π_k O(f)=π_k M$ for $k\geq 3$, and $π_2 O(f)=0$ except for few cases. In particular, $O(f)$ is aspherical, provided so is $M$. Moreover, $π_1 O(f)$ is an extension of a finitely generated …
We inspect Vietoris-Rips complexes $VR_t(X)$ of certain metric spaces $X$ using a new generalization of Bestvina-Brady discrete Morse theory. Our main result is a pair of metric criteria on $X$, called the Morse Criterion and Link Criterion, that allow us to deduce information about the homotopy types of certain $VR_t(X)$. One application is to topological data analysis, specifically persistence of homotopy type for certain Vietoris-Rips complexes. For example we recover some results of Adamaszek-Adams and Hausmann regarding homotopy types of $VR_t(S^n)$. Another application is to geometric gr…
In these lecture notes we discuss a body of work in which Morse theory is used to construct various homology and cohomology operations. In the classical setting of algebraic topology this is done by constructing a moduli space of graph flows, using homotopy theoretic methods to construct a virtual fundamental class, and evaluating cohomology classes on this fundamental class. By using similar constructions based on "fat" or ribbon graphs, we describe how to construct string topology operations on the loop space of a manifold, using Morse theoretic techniques. Finally, we discuss how to relate …
Elementary geometric arguments are used to compute the group of homotopy classes of maps from a 4-manifold X to the 3-sphere, and to enumerate the homotopy classes of maps from X to the 2-sphere. The former completes a project initiated by Steenrod in the 1940's, and the latter provides geometric arguments for and extensions of recent homotopy theoretic results of Larry Taylor. These two results complete the computation of all the cohomotopy sets of closed oriented 4-manifolds and provide a framework for the study of Morse 2-functions on 4-manifolds, a subject that has garnered considerable re…
For a closed oriented 3-manifold $Y$ we define $n(Y)$ to be the minimal non-negative number such that in each homotopy class of non-singular vector fields of $Y$ there is a Morse-Smale vector field with less or equal to $n(Y)$ periodic orbits. We combine the construction process of Morse-Smale flows given in [2] with handle decompositions of compact orientable surfaces to provide an upper bound to the number $n(Y)$ for oriented Seifert manifolds and oriented graph manifolds prime to $\stwo\times\sone$.
The idea of Lichnerowicz or Morse-Novikov cohomology groups of a manifold has been utilized by many researchers to study important properties and invariants of a manifold. Morse-Novikov cohomology is defined using the differential $d_ω=d+ω\wedge$, where $ω$ is a closed $1$-form. We study Morse-Novikov cohomology relative to a foliation on a manifold and its homotopy invariance and then extend it to more general type of forms on a Riemannian foliation. We study the Laplacian and Hodge decompositions for the corresponding differential operators on reduced leafwise Morse-Novikov complexes. In the…
A Morse function f on a manifold with corners M allows the characterization of the Morse data for a critical point by the Morse index. In fact, a modified gradient flow allows a proof of the Morse theorems in a manner similar to that of classical Morse theory. It follows that M is homotopy equivalent to a CW-complex with one cell of dimension λfor each essential critical point of index λ. The goal of this article is to determine the boundary maps of this CW-complex, in the case where M is compact and orientable. First, the boundary maps are defined in terms of the modified gradient flow. Then …
Generically, the set of points along which two non-singular vector fields on the three-sphere are positively (resp. negatively) collinear form a link. We prove that the two vector fields are homotopic if and only if the linking number of those links is zero. We use this criterion to give a new proof of a result of Yano: every non-singular vector field on the three-sphere is homotopic to a non-singular Morse-Smale vector field.
By explicitly comparing constructions, we prove that the higher torsion invariants of smooth bundles defined by Igusa and Klein via Morse theory agree with the higher torsion invariants defined by Badzioch, Dorabiala, Dwyer, Weiss, and Williams using homotopy theoretical methods.
Given a closed manifold N and a self-indexing Morse function f: N --> R with up to four distinct Morse indices, we construct a symplectic Lefschetz fibration pi: E --> C which models the complexification of f on the disk cotangent bundle, f_C : D(T*N) --> C, when f is real analytic. By construction, pi: E --> C comes with an explicit regular fiber M and vanishing spheres V_1,...,V_m in M, one for each critical point of f. Our main result is that (E,pi) is a good model for the complexification (D(T*N),f_C) in the sense that N embeds in E as an exact Lagrangian submanifold, and in addition, pi|N…
In principle, Floer theory can be extended to define homotopy invariants of families of equivalent objects (e.g. Hamiltonian isotopic symplectomorphisms, 3-manifolds, Legendrian knots, etc.) parametrized by a smooth manifold B. The invariant of a family consists of a filtered chain homotopy type, which gives rise to a spectral sequence whose E^2 term is the homology of B with twisted coefficients in the Floer homology of the fibers. The filtered chain homotopy type also gives rise to a "family Floer homology" to which the spectral sequence converges. For any particular version of Floer theory,…
We define an algebraic/combinatorial object on the front projection $Σ$ of a Legendrian knot called a Morse complex sequence, abbreviated MCS. This object is motivated by the theory of generating families and provides new connections between generating families, normal rulings, and augmentations of the Chekanov-Eliashberg DGA. In particular, we place an equivalence relation on the set of MCSs on $Σ$ and construct a surjective map from the equivalence classes to the set of chain homotopy classes of augmentations of $L_Σ$, where $L_Σ$ is the Ng resolution of $Σ$. In the case of Legendrian knot c…
Given two Morse functions $f, μ$ on a compact manifold $M$, we study the Morse homology for the Lagrange multiplier function on $M \times {\mathbb R}$ which sends $(x, η)$ to $f(x) + ημ(x)$. Take a product metric on $M \times {\mathbb R}$, and rescale its ${\mathbb R}$-component by a factor $λ^2$. We show that generically, for large $λ$, the Morse-Smale-Witten chain complex is isomorphic to the one for $f$ and the metric restricted to ${μ^{-1}(0)}$, with grading shifted by one. On the other hand, let $λ\to 0$, we obtain another chain complex, which is geometrically quite different but has the …
In the first half of the paper we construct a Morse-type theory on certain spaces of braid diagrams. We define a topological invariant of closed positive braids which is correlated with the existence of invariant sets of parabolic flows defined on discretized braid spaces. Parabolic flows, a type of one-dimensional lattice dynamics, evolve singular braid diagrams in such a way as to decrease their topological complexity; algebraic lengths decrease monotonically. This topological invariant is derived from a Morse-Conley homotopy index and provides a gloablization of `lap number' techniques used…
We define an invariant of rational homology 3-spheres via vector fields. The construction of our invariant is a generalization of both that of the Kontsevich-Kuperberg-Thurston invariant and that of Watanabe's Morse homotopy invariant, which implies the equivalence of these two invariants.
In various situations in Floer theory, one extracts homological invariants from "Morse-Bott" data in which the "critical set" is a union of manifolds, and the moduli spaces of "flow lines" have evaluation maps taking values in the critical set. This requires a mix of analytic arguments (establishing properties of the moduli spaces and evaluation maps) and formal arguments (defining or computing invariants from the analytic data). The goal of this paper is to isolate the formal arguments, in the case when the critical set is a union of circles. Namely, we state axioms for moduli spaces and eval…
