80 pages, AmSTeX, uses pstricks. v2: new abstract, more examples and applications. v3: 94 pages, major revision, submitted; Thm 0.2 and Sections 3.c, 5.d-5.f added
We compare the higher analytic torsion of Bismut and Lott of a fibre bundle p: M -> B equipped with a flat vector bundle F -> M and a fibre-wise Morse function h on M with a higher torsion T that is constructed in terms of a families Thom-Smale complex associated to h and F, thereby extending previous joint work with Bismut. Under additional conditions on F, the torsion T is related to Igusa's higher Franz-Reidemeister torsion. As an application, we use the higher analytic torsion to detect infinite families of smooth bundles p_i: M -> B with diffeomorphic fibres that are homeomorphic but not diffeomorphic as bundles.
Let p: M -> B be a family of compact manifolds equipped with a unitarily flat vector bundle F -> M. We generalize Igusa's higher Franz-Reidemeister torsion τ(M/B;F) to the case that the fibre-wise cohomology H^*(M/B;F) -> B carries a parallel metric. If moreover M admits a fibre-wise Morse function, we compute the difference of τ(M/B;F) and the higher analytic torsion \Cal T(M/B;F). We also generalise the examples given in math.DG/0111222 .
In this paper we prove the Cheeger-Müller theorem for $L^2$-analytic torsion form under the assumption that there exists a fiberwise Morse function and the Novikov-Shubin invariant is positive.
In two previous papers with Yi-Jen Lee, we defined and computed a notion of Reidemeister torsion for the Morse theory of closed 1-forms on a finite dimensional manifold. The present paper gives an a priori proof that this Morse theory invariant is a topological invariant. It is hoped that this will provide a model for possible generalizations to Floer theory.
Let X be a compact oriented Riemannian manifold and let $ϕ:X\to S^1$ be a circle-valued Morse function. Under some mild assumptions on $ϕ$, we prove a formula relating: (a) the number of closed orbits of the gradient flow of $ϕ$ of any given degree; (b) the torsion of a ``Morse complex'', which counts gradient flow lines between critical points of $ϕ$; and (c) a kind of Reidemeister torsion of X determined by the homotopy class of $ϕ$. When $\dim(X)=3$ and $b_1(X)>0$, we state a conjecture analogous to Taubes's ``SW=Gromov'' theorem, and we use it to deduce (for closed manifolds, modulo signs)…
Let X be a closed manifold with zero Euler characteristic, and let f: X --> S^1 be a circle-valued Morse function. We define an invariant I which counts closed orbits of the gradient of f, together with flow lines between the critical points. We show that our invariant equals a form of topological Reidemeister torsion defined by Turaev [Math. Res. Lett. 4 (1997) 679-695]. We proved a similar result in our previous paper [Topology, 38 (1999) 861-888], but the present paper refines this by separating closed orbits and flow lines according to their homology classes. (Previously we only considered…
The works of Donaldson and Mark make the structure of the Seiberg-Witten invariant of 3-manifolds clear. It corresponds to certain torsion type invariants counting flow lines and closed orbits of a gradient flow of a circle-valued Morse map on a 3-manifold. We study these invariants using the Morse-Novikov theory and Heegaard splitting for sutured manifolds, and make detailed computations for knot complements.
Let F be a flat vector bundle over a compact Riemannian manifold M and let f be a Morse function. Let g be a smooth Euclidean metric on F, let g_t=e^{-2tf}g and let ρ(t) be the Ray-Singer analytic torsion of F associated to the metric g_t. Assuming that the vector field grad(f) satisfies the Morse-Smale transversality conditions, we provide an asymptotic expansion for \log(ρ(t)) for t\to +\infty of the form a_0+a_1t+b\log\left(\frac tπ\right)+o(1), where the coefficient b is a half-integer depending only on the Betti numbers of F. In the case where all the critical values of f are rational, we…
Consider a flat vector bundle F over compact Riemannian manifold M and let f be a self-indexing Morse function on M. Let g be a smooth Euclidean metric on F. Set g_t=exp(-2tf)g and let ρ(t) be the Ray-Singer analytic torsion of F associated to the metric g_t. Assuming that the vector field $grad f$ satisfies the Morse-Smale transversality conditions, we provide an asymptotic expansion for log(ρ(t)) for t\to\infty of the form a_0+a_1t+b log(t)+o(1). We present explicit formulae for coefficients a_0,a_1 and b. In particular, we show that b is a half integer.
We consider general Morse-Smale diffeomorphisms on a closed orientable two-dimentional surface. In this paper it is proved that the complete topological invariant of Morse-Smale diffeomorphisms is finite, the algorithm of the construction of the complete topological invariant in explicit form is given and necessary and sufficient conditions of topological conjugacy of Morse-Smale diffeomorphisms is obtained.
In this paper we extend first the Bismut-Lott's analytic torsion form for flat vector bundles to the boundary case, then we establish its gluing formula on a smooth fibration under the assumption that a fiberwise Morse function exists. We assume that the metrics have product structures near the cutting hypersurface.
We study the structure of the smooth manifold which is defined as the intersection of a stable manifold and an unstable manifold for an invariant Morse-Smale function.
We give an overview over the higher torsion invariants of Bismut-Lott, Igusa-Klein and Dwyer-Weiss-Williams, including some more or less recent developments.
Consider an action of a connected compact Lie group on a compact complex manifold $M$, and two equivariant vector bundles $L$ and $E$ on $M$, with $L$ of rank 1. The purpose of this paper is to establish holomorphic Morse inequalities à la Demailly for the invariant part of the Dolbeault cohomology of tensor powers of $L$ twisted by $E$. To do so, we define a moment map $μ$ by the Kostant formula and we define the reduction of $M$ under a natural hypothesis on $μ^{-1}(0)$. Our inequalities are given in term of the curvature of the bundle induced by $L$ on this reduction.
We present a new proof, as well as a ${\bf C/Q}$ extension, of the Riemann-Roch-Grothendieck theorem of Bismut-Lott for flat vector bundles. The main techniques used are the computations of the adiabatic limits of $η$-invariants associated to the so-called sub-signature operators. We further show that the Bismut-Lott analytic torsion form can be derived naturally from the transgression of the $η$-forms appearing in the adiabatic limit computations.
We prove the upper-semi-continuity of the Morse index plus nullity of critical points to general conformally invariant Lagrangians in dimension 2 under weak convergence. Precisely we establish that the sum of the Morse indices and the nullity of an arbitrary sequence of weakly converging critical points to a general conformally invariant Lagrangians of maps from an arbitrary closed surface into an arbitrary closed smooth manifold passes to the limit in the following sense : it is asymptotically bounded from above by the sum of the Morse indices plus the nullity of the weak limit and the bubble…
For Morse-Smale pairs on a smooth, closed manifold the Morse-Smale-Witten chain complex can be defined. The associated Morse homology is isomorphic to the singular homology of the manifold and yields the classical Morse relations for Morse functions. A similar approach can be used to define homological invariants for isolated invariant sets of flows on a smooth manifold, which gives an analogue of the Conley index and the Morse-Conley relations. The approach will be referred to as Morse-Conley-Floer homology.
It is shown that the topological phenomenon "zero in the continuous spectrum", discovered by S.P.Novikov and M.A.Shubin, can be explained in terms of a homology theory on the category of finite polyhedra with values in certain abelian category. This approach implies homotopy invariance of the Novikov-Shubin invariants. Its main advantage is that it allows to use the standard homological techniques, such as spectral sequences, derived functors, universal coefficients etc., while studying the Novikov-Shubin invariants. It also leads to some new quantitative invariants, measuring the Novikov-Shub…
We develop the theory of twisted L^2-cohomology and twisted spectral invariants for flat Hilbertian bundles over compact manifolds. They can be viewed as functions on the first de Rham cohomology of M and they generalize the standard notions. A new feature of the twisted L^2-cohomology theory is that in addition to satisfying the standard L^2 Morse inequalities, they also satisfy certain asymptotic L^2 Morse inequalities. These reduce to the standard Morse inequalities in the finite dimensional case, and when the Morse 1-form is exact. We define the extended twisted L^2 de Rham cohomology and …
We give a surgery formula for the torsions and Seiberg-Witten invariants associated with $Spin^c$-structures on 3-manifolds. We use the technique of Reidemeister-type torsions and their refinements.
In a recent joint work with V. Turaev (cf. math.DG/9810114) we defined a new concept of combinatorial torsion which we called absolute torsion. Compared with the classical Reidemeister torsion it has the advantage of having a well-defined sign. Also, the absolute torsion is defined for arbitrary orientable flat vector bundles, and not only for unimodular ones, as is classical Reidemeister torsion. In this paper I show that the sign behavior of the absolute torsion, under a continuous deformation of the flat bundle, is determined by the eta-invariant and the Pontrjagin classes.
It is well known that the cohomology groups of a closed manifold $M$ can be reconstructed using the gradient dynamical of a Morse-Smale function $f\colon M\to \R$. A direct result of this construction are Morse inequalities that provide lower bounds for the number of critical points of $f$ in term of Betti numbers of $M$. These inequalities can be deduced through a purely analytic method by studying the asymptotic behaviour of the deformed Laplacian operator. This method was introduced by E. Witten and has inspired a numbers of great achievements in Geometry and Topology in few past decades. I…
We introduce and study a notion of invariant intrinsic torsion geometry which appears, for instance, in connection with the Bryant-Salamon metric on the spinor bundle over S^3. This space is foliated by six-dimensional hypersurfaces, each of which carries a particular type of SO(3)-structure; the intrinsic torsion is invariant under SO(3). The last condition is sufficient to imply local homogeneity of such geometries, and this allows us to give a classification. We close the circle by showing that the Bryant-Salamon metric is the unique complete metric with holonomy G_2 that arises from SO(3)-…
For a Morse function on a closed orientable Riemannian manifold one introduces the {\it virtually small spectral package} an analytic object consisting of a finite number of analytic quantities derived from the pair, {\it Riemannian metric, Morse function\} which, in principle, can be calculated. One shows that they determine the {\it Torsion } of the underlying space, a parallel to the result that the dimensions of the spaces of harmonic forms calculate the {\it Euler-Poincaré characteristic} of the underlying space and extends the {\it Poincaré Duality} between harmonic forms and between Bet…
For an acyclic representation of the fundamental group of a compact oriented odd-dimensional manifold, which is close enough to a unitary representation, we define a refinement of the Ray-Singer torsion associated to this representation. This new invariant can be viewed as an analytic counterpart of the refined combinatorial torsion introduced by Turaev. The refined analytic torsion is a holomorphic function of the representation of the fundamental group. When the representation is unitary, the absolute value of the refined analytic torsion is equal to the Ray-Singer torsion, while its phase i…
After Bershadsky-Cecotti-Ooguri-Vafa, we introduce an invariant of Calabi-Yau threefolds, which we call the BCOV invariant and which we obtain using analytic torsion. We give an explicit formula for the BCOV invariant as a function on the compactified moduli space, when it is isomorphic to a projective line. As a corollary, we prove the formula for the BCOV invariant of quintic mirror threefolds conjectured by Bershadsky-Cecotti-Ooguri-Vafa.
We show that the Igusa-Klein topological torsion and the Bismut-Lott analytic torsion are equivalent for any flat vector bundle whose holonomy is a finite subgroup of $\mathrm{GL}_n(\mathbb{Q})$. Our proof uses Artin's induction theorem in representation theory to reduce the problem to the special case of trivial flat line bundles, which is a recent result of Puchol, Zhu and the second author. The idea of using Artin's induction theorem appeared in a paper of Ohrt on the same topic, of which our present work is an improvement.
Inspired by the LG/CY correspondence, we study the local index theory of the Schrödinger operator associated to a singularity defined on ${\mathbb C}^n$ by a quasi-homogeneous polynomial $f$. Under some mild assumption on $f$, we show that the small time heat kernel expansion of the corresponding Schrödinger operator exists and is a series of fractional powers of time $t$. Then we prove a local index formula which expresses the Milnor number of $f$ by a Gaussian type integral. Furthermore, the heat kernel expansion provides spectral invariants of $f$. Especially, we define torsion type invaria…
We introduce a holomorphic torsion invariant of log-Enriques surfaces of index two with cyclic quotient singularities of type $\frac{1}{4}(1,1)$. The moduli space of such log-Enriques surfaces with $k$ singular points is a modular variety of orthogonal type %of dimension $10-k$ associated with a unimodular lattice of signature $(2,10-k)$. We prove that the invariant, viewed as a function on the modular variety, is given by the Petersson norm of an explicit Borcherds product. We note that this torsion invariant is essentially the BCOV invariant in the complex dimension $2$. As a consequence, th…
Our goal in this work is to develop aspects of Bialynicki-Birula and Morse-Bott theory that can be extended from the classical setting of smooth manifolds to that of complex analytic spaces with a holomorphic $\mathbb{C}^*$ action. We extend prior results on existence of Bialynicki-Birula decompositions for compact, complex Kähler manifolds to non-compact complex manifolds and develop functorial properties of the Bialynicki-Birula decomposition, in particular with respect to blowup along a $\mathbb{C}^*$-invariant, embedded complex submanifold. We deduce the existence of a Bialynicki-Birula de…
