We prove that given a closed connected symplectic manifold equipped with a Borel probability measure, an arbitrarily large portion of the measure can be covered by a symplectically embedded polydisk, generalizing a result of Schlenk. We apply this to constraints on symplectic quasi-states. Quasi-states are a certain class of not necessarily linear functionals on the algebra of continuous functions of a compact space. When the space is a symplectic manifold, a more restrictive subclass of symplectic quasi-states was introduced by Entov--Polterovich. We use our embedding result to prove that a certain `soft' construction of quasi-states, which is due to Aarnes, cannot yield nonlinear symplectic quasi-states in dimension at least four.
We use quantum and Floer homology to construct (partial) quasi-morphisms on the universal cover of the group of compactly supported Hamiltonian diffeomorphisms for a certain class of non-closed strongly semi-positive symplectic manifolds $(M,ω)$. This leads to construction of (partial) symplectic quasi-states on the space of continuous functions on $M$ that are constant near infinity. The work extends the results by Entov and Polterovich, which apply in the closed case.
We prove that quasi-morphisms and quasi-states on a closed integral symplectic manifold descend under symplectic reduction to symplectic hyperplane sections. Along the way we show that quasi-morphisms that arise from spectral invariants are the Calabi homomorphism when restricted to Hamiltonians supported on stably displaceable sets.
This is a survey about certain "almost homomorphisms" and "almost linear" functionals (called quasi-morphisms and quasi-states) in symplectic topology and their applications to Hamiltonian dynamics, functional-theoretic properties of Poisson brackets and algebraic and metric properties of symplectomorphism groups.
We show that the quotient associated to a quasi-Hamiltonian space has a symplectic structure even when 1 is not a regular value of the momentum map: it is a disjoint union of symplectic manifolds of possibly different dimensions, which generalizes a result of Alekseev, Malkin and Meinrenken. We illustrate this theorem with the example of representation spaces of surface groups. As an intermediary step, we show that the isotropy submanifolds of a quasi-Hamiltonian space are quasi-Hamiltonian spaces themselves.
This paper is a fusion of a survey and a research article. We focus on certain rigidity phenomena in function spaces associated to a symplectic manifold. Our starting point is a lower bound obtained in an earlier paper with Zapolsky for the uniform norm of the Poisson bracket of a pair of functions in terms of symplectic quasi-states. After a short review of the theory of symplectic quasi-states, we extend this bound to the case of iterated Poisson brackets. A new technical ingredient is the use of symplectic integrators. In addition, we discuss some applications to symplectic approximation th…
We prove that symplectic quasi-states and quasi-morphisms on a symplectic manifold descend under symplectic reduction on a superheavy level set of a Hamiltonian torus action. Using a construction due to Abreu and Macarini, in each dimension at least four we produce a closed symplectic toric manifold with infinite dimensional spaces of symplectic quasi-states and quasi-morphisms, and a one-parameter family of non-displaceable Lagrangian tori. By using McDuff's method of probes, we also show how Ostrover and Tyomkin's method for finding distinct spectral quasi-states in symplectic toric Fano man…
The quantum homology of the monotone complex quadric surface splits into the sum of two fields. We outline a proof of the following statement: The unities of these fields give rise to distinct symplectic quasi-states defined by asymptotic spectral invariants. In fact, these quasi-states turn out to be "supported" on disjoint Lagrangian submanifolds. Our method involves a spectral sequence which starts at homology of the loop space of the 2-sphere and whose higher differentials are computed via symplectic field theory, in particular with the help of the Bourgeois-Oancea exact sequence.
For a closed connected manifold N, we construct a family of functions on the Hamiltonian group G of the cotangent bundle T^*N, and a family of functions on the space of smooth functions with compact support on T^*N. These satisfy properties analogous to those of partial quasi-morphisms and quasi-states of Entov and Polterovich. The families are parametrized by the first real cohomology of N. In the case N=T^n the family of functions on G coincides with Viterbo's symplectic homogenization operator. These functions have applications to the algebraic and geometric structure of G, to Aubry-Mather …
For any k<2n we construct a complete system of invariants in the problem of classifying singularities of immersed k-dimensional submanifolds of a symplectic 2n-manifold at a generic double point.
We review and streamline our previous results and the results of Y.Ostrover on the existence of Calabi quasi-morphisms and symplectic quasi-states on symplectic manifolds with semi-simple quantum homology. As an illustration, we discuss the case of symplectic toric Fano 4-manifolds. We present also new results due to D.McDuff: she observed that for the existence of quasi-morphisms/quasi-states it suffices to assume that the quantum homology contains a field as a direct summand, and she showed that this weaker condition holds true for one point blow-ups of non-uniruled symplectic manifolds.
We discuss $C^0$-continuous homogeneous quasi-morphisms on the identity component of the group of compactly supported symplectomorphisms of a symplectic manifold. Such quasi-morphisms extend to the $C^0$-closure of this group inside the homeomorphism group. We show that for standard symplectic balls of any dimension, as well as for compact oriented surfaces, other than the sphere, the space of such quasi-morphisms is infinite-dimensional. In the case of surfaces, we give a user-friendly topological characterization of such quasi-morphisms. We also present an application to Hofer's geometry on …
In this paper we obtain exact normal forms with functional invariants for local diffeomorphisms, under the action of the symplectomorphism group in the source space. Using these normal forms we obtain exact classification results for the first occurring singularities of Hamiltonian systems with one-sided constraints, a problem posed by R. B. Melrose in his studies of glancing hypersurfaces.
In this work we construct Calabi quasi-morphisms on the universal cover of the group Ham(M) of Hamiltonian diffeomorphisms for some non-monotone symplectic manifolds. This complements a result by Entov and Polterovich which applies in the monotone case. Moreover, in contrast to their work, we show that these quasi-morphisms descend to non-trivial homomorphisms on the fundamental group of Ham(M).
We study the local symplectic algebra of parameterized curves introduced by V. I. Arnold. We use the method of algebraic restrictions to classify symplectic singularities of quasi-homogeneous curves. We prove that the space of algebraic restrictions of closed 2-forms to the germ of an analytic curve is a finite dimensional vector space. We also show that the action of local diffeomorphisms preserving the curve on this vector space is determined by the infinitesimal action of liftable vector fields. We apply these results to obtain the complete symplectic classification of curves with the semig…
We establish a link between symplectic topology and a recently emerged branch of functional analysis called the theory of quasi-states and quasi-measures. In the symplectic context quasi-states can be viewed as an algebraic way of packaging certain information contained in Floer theory, and in particular in spectral invariants of Hamiltonian diffeomorphisms introduced recently by Yong-Geun Oh. As a consequence we prove a number of new results on rigidity of intersections in symplectic manifolds. This work is a part of a joint project with Paul Biran.
We construct, for each convex polytope, possibly nonrational and nonsimple, a family of compact spaces that are stratified by quasifolds, i.e. each of these spaces is a collection of quasifolds glued together in an suitable way. A quasifold is a space locally modelled on $\R^k$ modulo the action of a discrete, possibly infinite, group. The way strata are glued to each other also involves the action of an (infinite) discrete group. Each stratified space is endowed with a symplectic structure and a moment mapping having the property that its image gives the original polytope back. These spaces m…
For a class of closed manifolds N, we construct a family of functions on the Hamiltonian group G of the cotangent bundle T*N. These restrict to homogeneous quasi-morphisms on the subgroup generated by Hamiltonians with support in a given cotangent ball bundle. The family is parametrized by the first real cohomology of N, and in the case N=T^n, it coincides with Viterbo's symplectic homogenization operator. These functions have applications to the algebraic and geometric structure of G and its subgroups, to symplectic rigidity, and to Aubry-Mather and weak KAM theory.
We compare two functionals defined on the space of continuous functions with compact support in an open neighborhood of the zero section of the cotangent bundle of a torus. One comes from Viterbo's symplectic homogenization while the other from the Calabi quasi-states due to Entov and Polterovich. In dimension 2 we are able to say when these two functionals are equal. A partial result in higher dimensions is presented. We also give a link to asymptotic Hofer geometry on T^*S^1. Proofs are based on the theory of quasi-integrals and topological measures on locally compact spaces.
This paper considers the enhanced symplectic "category" for purposes of quantizing quasi-Hamiltonian $G$-spaces, where $G$ is a compact simple Lie group. Our starting point is the well-acknowledged analogy between the cotangent bundle $T^*G$ in Hamiltonian geometry and the internally fused double $D(G)=G\times G$ in quasi-Hamiltonian geometry. Guillemin and Sternberg consider the former, studing half-densities and phase functions on its so-called character Lagrangians $Λ_{\mathcal{O}}\subseteq T^*G$. Our quasi-Hamiltonian counterpart replaces these character Lagrangians with the universal cent…
In this paper, we determine the Euler characteristics and signatures of the exact symplectic fillings of the contact double, 3-fold or 4-fold cyclic covers of the standard contact 3-sphere branched over certain transverse quasi-positive links. These links include all quasi-positive knots with crossing numbers smaller than 11 and all quasi-positive links with crossing numbers smaller than 12 and nonzero nullity.
We formulate certain sufficient conditions for the symplectic monodromy of an isolated quasihomogeneous singularity to be of infinite order in the relative symplectic mapping class group of the Milnor fibre and give a proof using Maslov classes, stability theory for Lagrangian folds resp. stable Morse theory for generating families as well as algebraic results about relative cohomology of smoothings of isolated singularities. Our conditions being slightly more restrictive than Seidel's, in contrary to Seidel's proof, we do not use Floer theory to derive this result. An alternative approach usi…
Let $\hat{G}$ be a group and $G$ its normal subgroup. In this paper, we study $\hat{G}$-invariant quasimorphisms on $G$ which appear in symplectic geometry and low dimensional topology. As its application, we prove the non-existence of a section of the flux homomorphism on closed surfaces of higher genus. We also prove that Py's Calabi quasimorphism and Entov-Polterovich's partial Calabi quasimorphism are non-extendable to the group of symplectomorphisms. We show that Py's Calabi quasimorphism is the unique non-extendable quasimorphism to some group.
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 encode the variation structure of a quasihomogeneous polynomial with an isolated singularity as introduced by Nemethi in a set of spectral flows of the signature operator on the Milnor bundle by varying global elliptic boundary conditions in a specific way using the quasihomogeneous circle action on the Brieskorn lattice. For this, we use adiabatic techniques and well-known results on spectral flow and Maslov index. Furthermore we interpret the inequality of a certain member of this family of spectral flows with a spectral flow induced by a Reeb flow on the boundary of the Milnor fibre as g…
We study the moduli space of twisted quasimaps from a fixed smooth projective curve to a Nakajima's quiver variety and the moduli space of $δ$-stable framed twisted quiver bundles with moment map relations. We show that they carry symmetric obstruction theories and when $δ$ is large enough, they exactly coincide. These results generalize works of D.E. Diaconescu about the ADHM quiver, in the framework of the quasimap theory of I. Ciocan-Fontanine, D. Maulik and the author.
It is known that any Poisson manifold can be embedded into a bigger space which admites a description in terms of the canonical Poisson structure, i.e., Darboux coordinates. Such a procedure is known as a symplectic realization and has a number of important applications like quantization of the original Poisson manifold. In the present paper we extend the above idea to the case of quasi-Poisson structures which should not necessarily satisfy the Jacobi identity. For any given quasi-Poisson structure $Θ$ we provide a recursive procedure of the construction of a symplectic manifold, as well as t…
Lie quasi-states on a real Lie algebra are functionals which are linear on any abelian subalgebra. We show that on the symplectic Lie algebra of rank at least 3 there is only one continuous non-linear Lie quasi-state (up to a scalar factor, modulo linear functionals). It is related to the asymptotic Maslov index of paths of symplectic matrices.
In this paper, we develop symplectic Hodge theory on transversely symplectic foliations. In particular, we establish the symplectic $dδ$-lemma for any such foliations with the (transverse) $s$-Lefschetz property. As transversely symplectic foliations include many geometric structures, such as contact manifolds, co-symplectic manifolds, symplectic orbifolds, and symplectic quasi-folds as special examples, our work provides a unifying treatment of symplectic Hodge theory in these geometries. As an application, we show that on compact $K$-contact manifolds, the $s$-Lefschetz property implies a ge…
We introduce quasi-symplectic groupoids and explain their relation with momentum map theories. This approach enables us to unify into a single framework various momentum map theories, including the ordinary Hamiltonian $G$-spaces, Lu's momentum maps of Poisson group actions, and group valued momentum maps of Alekseev--Malkin--Meinrenken. More precisely, we carry out the following program: (1) Define and study properties of quasi-symplectic groupoids; (2) Study the momentum map theory defined by a quasi-symplectic groupoid. In particular, we study the reduction theory and prove that the reduced…
We show that there is an hierarchy of intersection rigidity properties of sets in a closed symplectic manifold: some sets cannot be displaced by symplectomorphisms from more sets than the others. We also find new examples of rigidity of intersections involving, in particular, specific fibers of moment maps of Hamiltonian torus actions, monotone Lagrangian submanifolds (following the works of P.Albers and P.Biran-O.Cornea), as well as certain, possibly singular, sets defined in terms of Poisson-commutative subalgebras of smooth functions. In addition, we get some geometric obstructions to semi-…
We study the symplectic topology of certain K3 surfaces (including the "mirror quartic" and "mirror double plane"), equipped with certain Kähler forms. In particular, we prove that the symplectic Torelli group may be infinitely generated, and derive new constraints on Lagrangian tori. The key input, via homological mirror symmetry, is a result of Bayer and Bridgeland on the autoequivalence group of the derived category of an algebraic K3 surface of Picard rank one.
In this paper, we give two elementary constructions of homogeneous quasi-morphisms defined on the group of Hamiltonian diffeomorphisms of certain closed connected symplectic manifolds (or on its universal cover). The first quasi-morphism, denoted by $\calabi\_{S}$, is defined on the group of Hamiltonian diffeomorphisms of a closed oriented surface $S$ of genus greater than 1. This construction is motivated by a question of M. Entov and L. Polterovich. If $U\subset S$ is a disk or an annulus, the restriction of $\calabi\_{S}$ to the subgroup of diffeomorphisms which are the time one map of a Ha…
We prove that the group of area-preserving diffeomorphisms of the 2-sphere admits a non-trivial homogeneous quasimorphism to the real numbers with the following property. Its value on any diffeomorphism supported in a sufficiently small open subset of the sphere equals to the Calabi invariant of the diffeomorphism. This result extends to more general symplectic manifolds: If the symplectic manifold is monotone and its quantum homology algebra is semi-simple we construct a similar quasimorphism on the universal cover of the group of Hamiltonian diffeomorphisms.
In this article we study Ammann tilings from the perspective of symplectic geometry. Ammann tilings are nonperiodic tilings that are related to quasicrystals with icosahedral symmetry. We associate to each Ammann tiling two explicitly constructed highly singular symplectic spaces and we show that they are diffeomorphic but not symplectomorphic. These spaces inherit from the tiling its very interesting symmetries.
In this paper we consider the length minimizing properties of Hamiltonian paths generated by quasi-autonomous Hamiltonians on symplectically aspherical manifolds. Motivated by the work of L. Polterovich and M. Schwarz, we study the role of the fixed global extrema in the Floer complex of the generating Hamiltonian. Our main result determines a natural condition on a fixed global maximum of a Hamiltonian which implies that the corresponding path minimizes the positive Hofer length. We use this to prove that a quasi-autonomous Hamiltonian generates a length minimizing path if it has under-twiste…
We introduce the notion of Poisson quasi-Nijenhuis manifolds generalizing the Poisson-Nijenhuis manifolds of Magri-Morosi. We also investigate the integration problem of Poisson quasi-Nijenhuis manifolds. In particular, we prove that, under some topological assumption, Poisson (quasi)-Nijenhuis manifolds are in one-one correspondence with symplectic (quasi)-Nijenhuis groupoids. As an application, we study generalized complex structures in terms of Poisson quasi-Nijenhuis manifolds. We prove that a generalized complex manifold corresponds to a special class of Poisson quasi-Nijenhuis structures…
We interpret the chiral WZNW model with general monodromy as an infinite dimensional quasi-Hamiltonian dynamical system. This interpretation permits to explain the totality of complicated cross-terms in the symplectic structures of various WZNW defects solely in terms of the single concept of the quasi-Hamiltonian fusion. Translated from the WZNW language into that of the moduli space of flat connections on Riemann surfaces, our result gives a compact and transparent characterisation of the symplectic structure of the moduli space of flat connections on a surface with k handles, n boundaries a…
In this research announcement we associate to each convex polytope, possibly nonrational and nonsimple, a family of compact spaces that are stratified by quasifolds, i.e. the strata are locally modelled by $\R^k$ modulo the action of a discrete, possibly infinite, group. Each stratified space is endowed with a symplectic structure and a moment mapping having the property that its image gives the original polytope back. These spaces may be viewed as a natural generalization of symplectic toric varieties to the nonrational setting. We provide here the explicit construction of these spaces, and a…
Is is known that the loop space associated to a Riemannian manifold admits a quasi-symplectic structure. This article shows that this structure is not likely to recover the underlying Riemannian metric by proving a result that is a strong indication of the "almost" independence of the quasi-symplectic structure with respect to the metric. Finally conditions to have contact structures on these spaces are studied.
A symplectic manifold $(M,ω)$ is called {\em (symplectically) uniruled} if there is a nonzero genus zero GW invariant involving a point constraint. We prove that symplectic uniruledness is invariant under symplectic blow-up and blow-down. This theorem follows from a general Relative/Absolute correspondence for a symplectic manifold together with a symplectic submanifold. A direct consequence is that symplectic uniruledness is a symplectic birational invariant. Here we use Guillemin and Sternberg's notion of cobordism as the symplectic analogue of the birational equivalence.
For a symplectic manifold with an anti-symplectic involution having non-empty fixed locus, we construct a model of the moduli space of real sphere maps out of moduli spaces of decorated disk maps and give an explicit expression for its first Stiefel-Whitney class. As a corollary, we obtain a large number of examples, which include all odd-dimensional projective spaces and many complete intersections, for which many types of real moduli spaces are orientable. For these manifolds, we define open Gromov-Witten invariants with no restriction on the dimension of the manifolds or the type of the con…
We derive constraints on Lagrangian embeddings in completions of certain stable symplectic fillings with semisimple symplectic cohomologies. Manifolds with these properties can be constructed by generalizing the boundary connected sum operation to our setting, and are related to certain birational surgeries like blow-downs and flips. As a consequence, there are many non-toric (non-compact) monotone symplectic manifolds whose wrapped Fukaya categories are proper.
The purpose of this article is to view Penrose rhombus tilings from the perspective of symplectic geometry. We show that each thick rhombus in such a tiling can be naturally associated to a highly singular 4-dimensional compact symplectic space, while each thin rhombus can be associated to another such space; both spaces are invariant under the Hamiltonian action of a 2-dimensional quasitorus, and the images of the corresponding moment mappings give the rhombuses back. These two spaces are diffeomorphic but not symplectomorphic.
We extend the definition of Weinstein's Action homomorphism to Hamiltonian actions with equivariant moment maps of (possibly infinite-dimensional) Lie groups on symplectic manifolds, and show that under conditions including a uniform bound on the symplectic areas of geodesic triangles the resulting homomorphism extends to a quasimorphism on the universal cover of the group. We apply these principles to finite dimensional Hermitian Lie groups like Sp(2n,R), reinterpreting the Guichardet-Wigner quasimorphisms, and to the infinite dimensional groups of Hamiltonian diffeomorphisms Ham(M,\om) of cl…
We establish constraints on the topology of smooth Lefschetz fibrations with $4$-dimensional fibers, by studying the family Bauer-Furuta invariant. To compute this invariant, we analyze the framed bordism class of 1-dimensional Seiberg-Witten moduli spaces using the local index theorem by Bismut-Freed. Using this, we deduce new obstructions to the smooth isotopy to the identity for compositions of Dehn twists on $(-2)$-spheres in closed $4$-manifolds. We obtain several applications: (1) We exhibit the first examples of closed simply-connected symplectic $4$-manifolds admitting Torelli symplect…
