For a closed symplectic manifold $(M,ω)$, a compatible almost complex structure $J$, a 1-periodic time dependent symplectic vector field $Z$ and a homotopy class of closed curves $γ$ we define a Floer complex based on 1-periodic trajectories of $Z$ in the homotopy class $γ$. We suppose that the closed 1-form $i_{Z_t}ω$ represents a cohomology class $β(Z):=β$, independent of $t$. We show how to associate to $(M,ω,γ,β)$ and to two pairs $(Z_i,J_i)$, $i=1,2$ with $β(Z_i)=β$ an invariant, the relative symplectic torsion, which is an element in the Whitehead group $Wh(Λ_0)$, of a Novikov ring $Λ_0$ associated with $(M,ω,Z,γ)$. If the cohomology of the Floer complex vanishes or if $γ$ is trivial we derive an invariant, the symplectic torsion for any pair $(Z,J)$.
We prove, that when $β(γ)\neq 0$, or when $γ$ is non-trivial and $β$ is 'small', the cohomology of the Floer complex is trivial, but the symplectic torsion can be non-trivial. Using the first fact we conclude results about non-contractible 1-periodic trajectories of 1-periodic symplectic vector fields. In this version we will only prove the statements for closed weakly monotone manifolds, but note that they remain true as formulated for arbitrary closed symplectic manifolds.
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 …
In this article we define and compute the Novikov Floer homology associated to a non-resonant magnetic field and a mechanical Hamiltonian on a flat torus T^{2N}. As a result, we deduce that this Hamiltonian system always has 2N+1 contractible solutions, and generically even 2^{2N} contractible solutions. Moreover if there exists a non-degenerate non-contractible solution then there necessarily exists another.
In this paper we establish the existence of periodic orbits belonging to any $σ$-atoroidal free homotopy class for Hamiltonian systems in the twisted disc bundle, provided that the compactly supported time-dependent Hamiltonian function is sufficiently large over the zero section and the magnitude of the weakly exact $2$-form $σ$ admitting a primitive with at most linear growth on the universal cover is sufficiently small. The proof relies on showing the invariance of Floer homology under symplectic deformations and on the computation of Floer homology for the cotangent bundle endowed with its…
We show that an infinite family of contractible 4-manifolds have the same boundary as a special type of plumbing. Consequently their Ozsvath--Szabo invariants can be calculated algorithmically. We run this algorithm for the first few members of the family and list the resulting Heegaard--Floer homologies. We also show that the rank of the Heegaard--Floer homology can get arbitrary large values in this family by using its relation with the Casson invariant. For comparison, we list the ranks of Floer homologies of all the examples of Briekorn spheres that are known to bound contractible manifold…
In a previous paper, the author introduced a Floer-theoretic torsion invariant I_F, which roughly takes the form of a product of a power series counting perturbed pseudo-holomorphic tori, and the Reidemeister torsion of the symplectic Floer complex. We pointed out the formal resemblance of I_F with a generating function of genus 1 Gromov invariant; furthermore, for heuristic reasons one also expects a relation with the 1-loop generating function in the A-model side of mirror symmetry, which counts genus 1 holomorphic curves. The present article makes this expected relation precise in the simpl…
We prove the existence of infinitely many periodic points of symplectomorphisms isotopic to the identity if they admit at least one (non-contractible) hyperbolic periodic orbit and satisfy some condition on its flux. The obtained periodic points correspond to periodic orbits whose free homotopy classes are formed by iterations of the hyperbolic periodic orbit. Our result is proved for a certain class of closed symplectic manifolds and the main tool we use is a variation of Floer theory for non-contractible periodic orbits and symplectomorphisms, the Floer-Novikov theory. For a certain class of…
This is the first part of an article in two parts, which builds the foundation of a Floer-theoretic invariant, (I_F). (See math.DG/0505013 for part II). The Floer homology can be trivial in many variants of the Floer theory; it is therefore interesting to consider more refined invariants of the Floer complex. We consider one such instance--the Reidemeister torsion (τ_F) of the Floer-Novikov complex of (possibly non-hamiltonian) symplectomorphisms. (τ_F) turns out NOT to be invariant under hamiltonian isotopies, but this failure may be fixed by introducing certain ``correction term'': We define…
We show that if K: P \to R is an autonomous Hamiltonian on a symplectic manifold (P,Ω) which attains 0 as a Morse-Bott nondegenerate minimum along a symplectic submanifold M, and if c_1(TP)|_M vanishes in real cohomology, then the Hamiltonian flow of K has contractible periodic orbits with bounded period on all sufficiently small energy levels. As a special case, if the geodesic flow on the cotangent bundle of M is twisted by a symplectic magnetic field form, then the resulting flow has contractible periodic orbits on all low energy levels. These results were proven by Ginzburg and Gürel when …
We outline Hutchings's prescription that produces an ECH analog of Latschev and Wendl's algebraic $k$-torsion in the context of $ech$, a variant of ECH used in a proof of the isomorphism between Heegaard Floer and Seiberg-Witten Floer homologies; and we explain how it translates into Heegaard Floer homology.
This is the second part of an article in two parts, which builds the foundation of a Floer-theoretic invariant, I_F. (See math.DG/0111313 for part I). Having constructed I_F and outlined a proof of its invariance based on bifurcation analysis in part I, in this part we prove a series of gluing theorems to confirm the bifurcation behavior predicted in part I. These gluing theorems are different from (and much harder than) the more conventional versions in that they deal with broken trajectories or broken orbits connected at degenerate rest points. The issues of orientation and signs are also se…
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.
Floer theory was originally devised to estimate the number of 1-periodic orbits of Hamiltonian systems. In earlier works, we constructed Floer homology for homoclinic orbits on two dimensional manifolds using combinatorial techniques. In the present paper, we study theoretic aspects of computational complexity of homoclinic Floer homology. More precisely, for finding the homoclinic points and immersions that generate the homology and its boundary operator, we establish sharp upper bounds in terms of iterations of the underlying symplectomorphism. This prepares the ground for future numerical w…
We describe a connection between symplectic Floer homology for symplectomorphisms of surface and Nielsen fixed point theory. A new zeta functions and asymptotic invariant of symplectic origin are defined. We show that special values of symplectic zeta functions are Reidemeister torsions.
We study Hamiltonian diffeomorphisms of closed symplectic manifolds with non-contractible periodic orbits. In a variety of settings, we show that the presence of one non-contractible periodic orbit of a Hamiltonian diffeomorphism of a closed toroidally monotone or toroidally negative monotone symplectic manifold implies the existence of infinitely many non-contractible periodic orbits in a specific collection of free homotopy classes. The main new ingredient in the proofs of these results is a filtration of Floer homology by the so-called augmented action. This action is independent of capping…
For an adiscal or monotone regular coisotropic submanifold $N$ of a symplectic manifold I define its Floer homology to be the Floer homology of a certain Lagrangian embedding of $N$. Given a Hamiltonian isotopy $ϕ=(ϕ^t)$ and a suitable almost complex structure, the corresponding Floer chain complex is generated by the $(N,ϕ)$-contractible leafwise fixed points. I also outline the construction of a local Floer homology for an arbitrary closed coisotropic submanifold. Results by Floer and Albers about Lagrangian Floer homology imply lower bounds on the number of leafwise fixed points. This repro…
Entov and Polterovich defined heaviness for closed subsets of a symplectic manifold by using the Hamiltonian Floer theory on contractible trajectories. Heavy subsets are known to be non-displaceable. In the present paper, we define a relative symplectic capacity $C(M,X,R;e)$ for a symplectic manifold $(M,ω)$ and its subset $X$ which measures the existence of non-contractible trajectories of Hamiltonian isotopies on the product with annulus. We prove that $C(M,X,R;e)$ is finite if $(M,ω)$ is monotone and $X$ is a heavy subset. We also prove that $C(M,X,R;e)$ is infinite if $X$ is a displaceable…
A contact manifold admittting a supporting contact form without contractible Reeb orbits is called hypertight. In this paper we construct a Rabinowitz Floer homology associated to an arbitrary supporting contact form for a hypertight contact manifold, and use this to prove versions of conjectures of Sandon and Mazzucchelli on the existence of translated points and invariant Reeb orbits, and to show that positive loops of contactomorphisms give rise to non-contractible Reeb orbits.
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 use the theory of sutured TQFT to classify contact elements in the sutured Floer homology, with $\Z$ coefficients, of certain sutured manifolds of the form $(Σ\times S^1, F \times S^1)$ where $Σ$ is an annulus or punctured torus. Using this classification, we give a new proof that the contact invariant in sutured Floer homology with $\Z$ coefficients of a contact structure with Giroux torsion vanishes. We also give a new proof of Massot's theorem that the contact invariant vanishes for a contact structure on $(Σ\times S^1, F \times S^1)$ described by an isolating dividing set.
We show that the existence of noncontractible periodic orbits for compactly supported time-dependent Hamiltonian on the disk cotangent bundle of a Finsler manifold provided that the Hamiltonian is sufficiently large over the zero section. We generalize the BPS capacities and earlier constructions of Weber (2006 Duke Math. J. 133, 527-568) and other authors Biran et al (2003 Duke Math. J. 119, 65-118) to the Finsler setting. We then obtain a number of applications including: (1) generalizing the main theorem of Xue (2017 J. Symplectic Geom. 15, 905-936) to the Lie group setting, (2) preservatio…
Let M be a closed, connected, orientable 3-manifold. The purpose of this paper is to study the Seiberg-Witten Floer homology of M given that S^1 X M admits a symplectic form. In particular, we prove that M fibers over the circle if M has first Betti number 1 and S^1 X M admits a symplectic form with non-torsion canonical class.
We show that if (B,π) is an open book decomposition of a contact 3-manifold (Y,ξ), then the complement of the binding B has no Giroux torsion. We also prove the sutured Heegaard-Floer c-bar invariant of the binding of an open book is non-zero.
In a previous paper, Sarkar and the third author gave a combinatorial description of the hat version of Heegaard Floer homology for three-manifolds. Given a cobordism between two connected three-manifolds, there is an induced map between their Heegaard Floer homologies. Assume that the first homology group of each boundary component surjects onto the first homology group of the cobordism (modulo torsion). Under this assumption, we present a procedure for finding the rank of the induced Heegaard Floer map combinatorially, in the hat version.
We adapt classical Reidemeister torsion to monotone Lagrangian submanifolds using the pearl complex of Biran and Cornea. The definition involves generic choices of data and we identify a class of Lagrangians for which this torsion is invariant and can be computed in terms of genus zero open Gromov-Witten invariants. This class is defined by a vanishing property of a spectral sequence of Oh in Lagrangian Floer theory.
We show that if (M,ω) is a closed symplectic manifold which admits a nontrivial Hamiltonian vector field all of whose contractible closed orbits are constant, then Hofer's metric on the group of Hamiltonian diffeomorphisms of (M,ω) has infinite diameter, and indeed admits infinite-dimensional quasi-isometrically embedded normed vector spaces. A similar conclusion applies to Hofer's metric on various spaces of Lagrangian submanifolds, including those Hamiltonian-isotopic to the diagonal in M x M when M satisfies the above dynamical condition. To prove this, we use the properties of a Floer-theo…
Edtmair-Hutchings have recently defined, using periodic Floer homology, a U-cycle property for Hamiltonian isotopy classes of area-preserving diffeomorphisms of closed surfaces. They show that every Hamiltonian isotopy class satisfying the U-cycle property satisfies the smooth closing lemma and also satisfies a kind of Weyl law involving the actions of certain periodic points; they show that every rational isotopy class on the two-torus satisfies the U-cycle property. It seems that in general, not much is known about the U-module structure on PFH. Here we consider a version of Seiberg-Witten-F…
Let $p \geq 2$ be a prime, and $\mathbb{F}_p$ be the field with $p$ elements. Extending a result of Seidel for $p=2,$ we construct an isomorphism between the Floer cohomology of an exact or Hamiltonian symplectomorphism $ϕ,$ with $\mathbb{F}_p$ coefficients, and the $\mathbb{Z}/p \mathbb{Z}$-equivariant Tate Floer cohomology of its $p$-th power $ϕ^p.$ The construction involves a Kaledin-type quasi-Frobenius map, as well as a $\mathbb{Z}/p \mathbb{Z}$-equivariant pants product: an equivariant operation with $p$ inputs and $1$ output. Our method of proof involves a spectral sequence for the acti…
In this paper, we develop a mini-max theory of the action functional over the semi-infinite cycles via the chain level Floer homology theory and construct spectral invariants of Hamiltonian diffeomorphisms on arbitrary, especially on {\it non-exact and non-rational}, compact symplectic manifold $(M,ω)$. To each given time dependent Hamiltonian function $H$ and quantum cohomology class $ 0 \neq a \in QH^*(M)$, we associate an invariant $ρ(H;a)$ which varies continuously over $H$ in the $C^0$-topology. This is obtained as the mini-max value over the semi-infinite cycles whose homology class is `…
In 2002 Polterovich has notably established that on closed aspherical symplectic manifolds, Hamiltonian diffeomorphisms of finite order, which we call Hamiltonian torsion, must in fact be trivial. In this paper we prove the first higher-dimensional Hamiltonian no-torsion theorems beyond the symplectically aspherical case. We start by showing that closed symplectic Calabi-Yau and negative monotone symplectic manifolds do not admit Hamiltonian torsion. Going still beyond topological constraints, we prove that every closed positive monotone symplectic manifold $(M,ω)$ admitting Hamiltonian torsio…
In this paper we provide a criterion for the quasi-autonomous Hamiltonian path (``Hofer's geodesic'') on arbitrary closed symplectic manifolds $(M,ω)$ to be length minimizing in its homotopy class in terms of the spectral invariants $ρ(G;1)$ that the author has recently constructed (math.SG/0206092). As an application, we prove that any autonomous Hamiltonian path on arbitrary closed symplectic manifolds is length minimizing in {\it its homotopy class} with fixed ends, when it has no contractible periodic orbits {\it of period one}, has a maximum and a minimum point which are generically under…
We consider a natural class of time-periodic infinite-dimensional nonlinear Hamiltonian systems modelling the interaction of a classical mechanical system of particles with a scalar wave field. When the field is defined on a space torus $\mathbb{T}^d=\mathbb{R}^d/(2π\mathbb{Z})^d$ and the coordinates of the particles are constrained to a submanifold $Q\subset\mathbb{T}^d$, we prove that the number of $T$-periodic solutions of the coupled Hamiltonian particle-field system is bounded from below by the $\mathbb{Z}_2$-cuplength of the space of contractible loops in $Q$, provided that the square of…
In a previous paper, we showed that the original definition of cylindrical contact homology, with rational coefficients, is valid on a closed three-manifold with a dynamically convex contact form. However we did not show that this cylindrical contact homology is an invariant of the contact structure. In the present paper, we define "nonequivariant contact homology" and "S^1-equivariant contact homology", both with integer coefficients, for a contact form on a closed manifold in any dimension with no contractible Reeb orbits. We prove that these contact homologies depend only on the contact str…
We prove that every strong symplectic filling of a planar contact manifold admits a symplectic Lefschetz fibration over the disk, and every strong filling of the 3-torus similarly admits a Lefschetz fibration over the annulus. It follows that strongly fillable planar contact structures are also Stein fillable, and all strong fillings of the 3-torus are equivalent up to symplectic deformation and blowup. These constructions result from a compactness theorem for punctured J-holomorphic curves that foliate a convex symplectic manifold. We use it also to show that the compactly supported symplecto…