19 pages, 2 figures; to appear in J. Symplectic Geometry. Expository changes in Sections 1 and 4; corrected mistake in the proof of what is now Prop. 1.5
We give elementary proofs of two `folklore' assertions about near-symplectic forms on four-manifolds: that any such form can be modified, by an evolutionary process taking place within a finite set of balls, so as to have a prescribed positive number of zero-circles; and that, on a closed manifold, the number of zero-circles for which the splitting of the normal bundle is trivial has the same parity as 1+b_1+b_2^+.
For any nonempty, compact and fiberwise convex set $K$ in $T^*\mathbb{R}^n$, we prove an isomorphism between symplectic homology of $K$ and a certain relative homology of loop spaces of $\mathbb{R}^n$. We also prove a formula which computes symplectic homology capacity (which is a symplectic capacity defined from symplectic homology) of $K$ using homology of loop spaces. As applications, we prove (i) symplectic homology capacity of any convex body is equal to its Ekeland-Hofer-Zehnder capacity, (ii) a certain subadditivity property of the Hofer-Zehnder capacity, which is a generalization of a …
Let $Ω$ be a non-singular syplectic form on some vector space $V$. Denote by $S^{n}_{k}(Ω)$ the set of all $k$-dimensional planes $s$ in $V$ such that the restriction of $Ω$ onto $s$ is singular. For the cases when $k=2,n-2$ a simple geometric characteristic of $S^{n}_{k}(Ω)$ will be described.
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 present some methods to construct smooth circle actions on symplectic manifolds with non-symplectic fixed point sets or non-symplectic cyclic isotropy point sets. All such actions are not compatible with any symplectic form.
K. Cieliebak, H. Hofer, J. Latschev, and F. Schlenk (CHLS) posed the problem of finding a minimal generating set for the (symplectic) capacities on a given symplectic category. We show that if the category contains a certain one-parameter family of objects, then every countably Borel-generating set of (normalized) capacities has cardinality (strictly) bigger than the continuum. This appears to be the first result regarding the problem of CHLS, except for two results of D. McDuff about the category of ellipsoids in dimension 4. We also prove that every finitely differentiably generating set of …
We give an intrinsic proof that Vorobjev's first approximation of a Poisson manifold near a symplectic leaf is a Poisson manifold. We also show that Conn's linearization results cannot be extended in Vorobjev's setting.
We give a generalization of the concept of near-symplectic structures to 2n dimensions. According to our definition, a closed 2-form ωon a 2n-manifold M is near-symplectic, if it is symplectic outside a submanifold Z of codimension 3, where ω^{n-1} vanishes. This extends the concept known in dimension 4. We depict how this notion relates to near-symplectic 4-manifolds and broken Lefschetz fibrations via some examples. We define a generalized broken Lefschetz fibration, or BLF, as a singular map with indefinite folds and Lefschetz-type singularities. We show that given such a map on a 2n-manifo…
Delzant's theorem for symplectic toric manifolds says that there is a one-to-one correspondence between certain convex polytopes in $\mathbb{R}^n$ and symplectic toric $2n$-manifolds, realized by the image of the moment map. I review proofs of this theorem and the convexity theorem of Atiyah-Guillemin-Sternberg on which it relies. Then, I describe Honda's results on the local structure of near-symplectic 4-manifolds, and inspired by recent work of Gay-Symington, I describe a generalization of Delzant's theorem to near-symplectic toric 4-manifolds. One interesting feature of the generalization …
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.
In the early $1980$s a landmark result was obtained by Atiyah and independently Guillemin and Sternberg: the image of the momentum map for a torus action on a compact symplectic manifold is a convex polyhedron. Atiyah's proof makes use of the fact that level sets of the momentum map are connected. These proofs work in the setting of finite-dimensional compact symplectic manifolds. One can ask how these results generalize. A well-known example of an infinite-dimensional symplectic manifold with a finite-dimensional torus action is the based loop group. Atiyah and Pressley proved convexity for t…
Consider a Hamiltonian circle action on a closed $8$-dimensional symplectic manifold $M$ with exactly five fixed points, which is the smallest possible fixed set. In their paper, L. Godinho and S. Sabatini show that if $M$ satisfies an extra "positivity condition" then the isotropy weights at the fixed points of $M$ agree with those of some linear action on $\mathbb{CP}^4$. Therefore, the (equivariant) cohomology rings and the (equivariant) Chern classes of $M$ and $\mathbb{CP}^4$ agree; in particular, $H^*(M;\mathbb{Z}) \simeq \mathbb{Z}[y]/y^5$ and $c(TM) = (1+y)^5$. In this paper, we prove …
In the framework of the connection theory, a contravariant analog of the Sternberg coupling procedure is developed for studying a natural class of Poisson structures on fiber bundles, called coupling tensors. We show that every Poisson structure near a closed symplectic leaf can be realized as a coupling tensor. Our main result is a geometric criterion for the neighborhood equivalence between Poisson structures over the same leaf. This criterion gives a Poisson analog of the relative Darboux theorem due to Weinstein. Within the category of the algebroids, coupling tensors are introduced on the…
We use Floer homology to study the Hofer-Zehnder capacity of neighborhoods near a closed symplectic submanifold M of a geometrically bounded and symplectically aspherical ambient manifold. We prove that, when the unit normal bundle of M is homologically trivial in degree dim(M) (for example, if codim(M) > dim(M)), a refined version of the Hofer-Zehnder capacity is finite for all open sets close enough to M. We compute this capacity for certain tubular neighborhoods of M by using a squeezing argument in which the algebraic framework of Floer theory is used to detect nontrivial periodic orbits. …
We introduce a class of Weinstein domains which are sublevel sets of flexible Weinstein manifolds but are not themselves flexible. These manifolds exhibit rather subtle behavior with respect to both holomorphic curve invariants and symplectic flexibility. We construct a large class of examples and prove that every flexible Weinstein manifold can be Weinstein homotoped to have a nonflexible sublevel set.
On any symplectic manifold of dimension greater than 2, we construct a pair of smooth functions, such that on the one hand, the uniform norm of their Poisson bracket equals to 1, but on the other hand, this pair cannot be reasonably approximated (in the uniform norm) by a pair of Poisson commuting smooth functions. This comes in contrast with the dimension 2 case, where by a partial case of a result of Zapolsky, an opposite statement holds.
We show that a small neighborhood of a closed symplectic submanifold in a geometrically bounded aspherical symplectic manifold has non-vanishing symplectic homology. As a consequence, we establish the existence of contractible closed characteristics on any thickening of the boundary of the neighborhood. When applied to twisted geodesic flows on compact symplectically aspherical manifolds, this implies the existence of contractible periodic orbits for a dense set of low energy values.
Let $M$ be a compact, connected symplectic manifold with a Hamiltonian action of a compact $n$-dimensional torus $G=T^n$. Suppose that $σ$ is an anti-symplectic involution compatible with the $G$-action. The real locus of $M$ is $X$, the fixed point set of $σ$. Duistermaat uses Morse theory to give a description of the ordinary cohomology of $X$ in terms of the cohomology of $M$. There is a residual $\G=(\Zt)^n$ action on $X$, and we can use Duistermaat's result, as well as some general facts about equivariant cohomology, to prove an equivariant analogue to Duistermaat's theorem. In some cases…
We show how one can handle the formalism developped by Yurii Vorobjev in order to give general results about the problems of linearisation and of normal form of a Poisson structure in the neighborhood of one of its symplectic leaves.
In this paper we produce a lower bound for the number of periodic orbits of certain Hamiltonian vector fields near Bott-nondegenerate symplectic critical submanifolds. This result is then related to the problem of finding closed orbits of the motion of a charged low energy particle on a Riemannian manifold under the influence of a magnetic field
We connect Poisson and near-symplectic geometry by showing that there is a singular Poisson structure on a near-symplectic 4-manifold. The Poisson structure $π$ is defined on the tubular neighbourhood of the singular locus $Z_ω$ of the 2-form $ω$, it is of maximal rank 4 and it vanishes on a degeneracy set containing $Z_ω$. We compute its smooth Poisson cohomology, which depends on the modular vector field and it is finite dimensional. We conclude with a discussion on the relation between the Poisson structure $π$ and the overtwisted contact structure associated to a near-symplectic 4-manifold…
A near-symplectic structure on a 4-manifold is a closed 2-form that is symplectic away from the 1-dimensional submanifold along which it vanishes and that satisfies a certain transversality condition along this vanishing locus. We investigate near-symplectic 4-manifolds equipped with singular Lagrangian torus fibrations which are locally induced by effective Hamiltonian torus actions. We show how such a structure is completely characterized by a singular integral affine structure on the base of the fibration whenever the vanishing locus is nonempty. The base equipped with this geometric struct…
The topology of broken Lefschetz fibrations is studied by means of handle decompositions. We consider a slight generalization of round handles, and describe the handle diagrams for all that appear in dimension four. We establish simplified handlebody and monodromy representations for a certain subclass of broken Lefschetz fibrations/pencils, while showing that all near-symplectic closed 4-manifolds can be supported by these a la Auroux, Donaldson, Katzarkov. Various constructions of broken Lefschetz fibrations and a generalization of the symplectic fiber sum operation to the near-symplectic se…
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 show that generalized broken fibrations in arbitrary dimensions admit rank-2 Poisson structures compatible with the fibration structure. After extending the notion of wrinkled fibration to dimension 6 we prove that these wrinkled fibrations also admit compatible rank-2 Poisson structures. In the cases with indefinite singularities we can provide these wrinkled fibrations in dimension 6 with near-symplectic structures.
Motivated by the programmes initiated by Taubes and Perutz, we study the geometry of near-symplectic 4-manifolds, i.e., manifolds equipped with a closed 2-form which is symplectic outside a union of embedded 1-dimensional submanifolds, and broken Lefschetz fibrations on them. We present a set of four moves which allow us to pass from any given fibration to any other broken fibration which is deformation equivalent to it. Moreover, we study the change of the near-symplectic geometry under each of these moves. The arguments rely on the introduction of a more general class of maps, which we call …
For Hamiltonian flows we establish the existence of periodic orbits on a sequence of level sets approaching a Bott-nondegenerate symplectic extremum of the Hamiltonian. As a consequence, we show that a charge on a compact manifold with a nondegenerate (i.e. symplectic) magnetic field has periodic orbits on a sequence of energy levels converging to zero.
We revisit the definition of the Maslov index of loops in coisotropic submanifolds tangent to the characteristic foliation of this submanifold. This Maslov index is given by the mean index of a certain symplectic path which is a lift of the holonomy along the loop. We prove a result on the rigidity of the Maslov index for stable coisotropic submanifolds in a broad class of ambient symplectic manifolds. Furthermore, we establish a nearby existence theorem for the same class of ambient manifolds.
Given an integral symplectic manifold, we construct a family of "coherent state" maps into complex projective space. The maps are built from sections of the tensor powers of a hermitian line bundle whose curvature is a multiple of the symplectic form. We show that this family is an almost-complex version of the Kodiara embedding. That is, the maps are embeddings which are approximately pseudo-holomorphic.
Let the circle act effectively in a Hamiltonian fashion on a compact symplectic manifold $(M, ω)$. Assume that the fixed point set $M^{S^1}$ has exactly two components, $X$ and $Y$, and that $\dim(X) + \dim(Y) +2 = \dim(M)$. We first show that $X$, $Y$ and $M$ are simply connected. Then we show that, up to $S^1$-equivariant diffeomorphism, there are finitely many such manifolds in each dimension. Moreover, we show that in low dimensions, the manifold is unique in a certain category. We use techniques from both areas of symplectic geometry and geometric topology.
This paper presents a proof of the existence of standard symplectic coordinates near a set of smooth, orthogonally intersecting symplectic submanifolds. It is a generalization of the standard symplectic neighborhood theorem. Moreover, in the presence of a compact Lie group $G$ acting symplectically, the coordinates can be chosen to be $G$-equivariant.
We use the minimal coupling procedure of Sternberg and Weinstein and our pseudo-symplectic capacity theory to prove that every closed symplectic submanifold in any symplectic manifold has an open neighborhood with finite ($π_1$-sensitive) Hofer-Zehnder symplectic capacity. Consequently, the Weinstein conjecture holds near closed symplectic submanifolds in any symplectic manifold.
A log symplectic manifold is a Poisson manifold which is generically nondegenerate. We develop two methods for constructing the symplectic groupoids of log symplectic manifolds. The first is a blow-up construction, corresponding to the notion of an elementary modification of a Lie algebroid along a subalgebroid. The second is a gluing construction, whereby groupoids defined on the open sets of an appropriate cover may be combined to obtain global integrations. This allows us to classify all Hausdorff symplectic groupoids of log symplectic manifolds in a combinatorial fashion, in terms of a cer…
We explicitly compute the semi-global symplectic invariants near the focus-focus point of the spherical pendulum. A modified Birkhoff normal form procedure is presented to compute the expansion of the Hamiltonian near the unstable equilibrium point in Eliasson-variables. Combining this with explicit formulas for the action we find the semi-global symplectic invariants near the focus-focus point introduced by Vu Ngoc 2003. We also show that the Birkhoff normal form is the inverse of a complete elliptic integral over a vanishing cycle. To our knowledge this is the first time that semi-global sym…
Let $M$ be a symplectic toric manifold acted on by a torus $\mathbb{T}$. In this work we exhibit an explicit basis for the equivariant K-theory ring $\mathcal{K}_{\mathbb{T}}(M)$ which is canonically associated to a generic component of the moment map. We provide a combinatorial algorithm for computing the restrictions of the elements of this basis to the fixed point set; these, in turn, determine the ring structure of $\mathcal{K}_{\mathbb{T}}(M)$. The construction is based on the notion of local index at a fixed point, similar to that introduced by Guillemin and Kogan in [GK]. We apply the s…
We define and study the notion of quantum polarity, which is a kind of geometric Fourier transform between sets of positions and sets of momenta. Extending previous work of ours, we show that the orthogonal projections of the covariance ellipsoid of a quantum state on the configuration and momentum spaces form what we call a dual quantum pair. We thereafter show that quantum polarity allows solving the Pauli reconstruction problem for Gaussian wavefunctions. The notion of quantum polarity exhibits a strong interplay between the uncertainty principle and symplectic and convex geometry and our a…
We consider structures analogous to symplectic Lefschetz pencils in the context of a closed 4-manifold equipped with a `near-symplectic' structure (ie, a closed 2-form which is symplectic outside a union of circles where it vanishes transversely). Our main result asserts that, up to blowups, every near-symplectic 4-manifold (X,omega) can be decomposed into (a) two symplectic Lefschetz fibrations over discs, and (b) a fibre bundle over S^1 which relates the boundaries of the Lefschetz fibrations to each other via a sequence of fibrewise handle additions taking place in a neighbourhood of the ze…
In this paper we develop an integration theory for zero sets of polyfold Fredholm sections. The results are needed in the application of the polyfold theory. We use it for example in the construction of symplectic field theory.
For a closed oriented smooth 4-manifold X with $b^2_+(X)>0$, the Seiberg-Witten invariants are well-defined. Taubes' "SW=Gr" theorem asserts that if X carries a symplectic form then these invariants are equal to well-defined counts of pseudoholomorphic curves, Taubes' Gromov invariants. In the absence of a symplectic form there are still nontrivial closed self-dual 2-forms which vanish along a disjoint union of circles and are symplectic elsewhere. This paper and its sequel describes well-defined counts of pseudoholomorphic curves in the complement of the zero-set of such "near-symplectic" for…
We compute the semi-global symplectic invariants near the hyperbolic equilibrium points of the Euler top. The Birkhoff normal form at the hyperbolic point is computed using Lie series. The actions near the hyperbolic point are found using Frobenius expansion of its Picard-Fuchs equation. We show that the Birkhoff normal form can also be found by inverting the regular solution of the Picard-Fuchs equation. Composition of the singular action integral with the Birkhoff normal form gives the semi-global symplectic invariant. Finally, we discuss the convergence of these invariants and show that in …
The study of fixed points is a classical subject in geometry and dynamics. If the circle acts in a Hamiltonian fashion on a compact symplectic manifold M, then it is classically known that there are at least 1 + dim(M)/2 fixed points; this follows from Morse theory for the momentum map of the action. In this paper we use Atiyah-Bott-Berline-Vergne (ABBV) localization in equivariant cohomology to prove that this conclusion also holds for symplectic circle actions with non-empty fixed sets, as long as the Chern class map is somewhere injective -- the Chern class map assigns to a fixed point the …
We generalize the Weinstein-Moser theorem on the existence of nonlinear normal modes (i.e., periodic orbits) near an equilibrium in a Hamiltonian system to a theorem on the existence of relative periodic orbits near a relative equilibrium in a Hamiltonian system with continuous symmetries. More specifically we significantly improve a result proved earlier jointly with Tokieda (math.SG/9901102): we remove a technical hypothesis which amounted to an assumption that the symmetry group is a torus.
We exhibit Lerman's cutting procedure as a functor from the category of manifolds-with-boundary equipped with free circle actions near the boundary, with so-called equivariant transverse maps, to the category of manifolds and smooth maps. We then apply the cutting procedure to differential forms that are not necessarily symplectic, to distributions that are not necessarily contact, and to submanifolds. We obtain an inverse functor from so-called equivariant radial-squared blowup.
The symplectic Stiefel manifold, denoted by $\mathrm{Sp}(2p,2n)$, is the set of linear symplectic maps between the standard symplectic spaces $\mathbb{R}^{2p}$ and $\mathbb{R}^{2n}$. When $p=n$, it reduces to the well-known set of $2n\times 2n$ symplectic matrices. We study the Riemannian geometry of this manifold viewed as a Riemannian submanifold of the Euclidean space $\mathbb{R}^{2n\times 2p}$. The corresponding normal space and projections onto the tangent and normal spaces are investigated. Moreover, we consider optimization problems on the symplectic Stiefel manifold. We obtain the expr…
We show that any 4-manifold, after surgery on a curve, admits an achiral Lefschetz fibration. In particular, we show that the connected sum of any simply connected 4-manifold with a 2-sphere bundle over the 2-sphere will admit an achiral Lefschetz fibration. We also show these surgered manifolds admit near-symplectic structures and prove more generally that achiral Lefschetz fibrations with sections have near-symplectic structures. As a corollary to our proof we obtain an alternate proof of Gompf's result on the existence of symplectic structures on Lefschetz pencils.
A symplectic semitoric manifold is a symplectic $4$-manifold endowed with a Hamiltonian $(S^1 \times \mathbb{R})$-action satisfying certain conditions. The goal of this paper is to construct a new symplectic invariant of symplectic semitoric manifolds, the helix, and give applications. The helix is a symplectic analogue of the fan of a nonsingular complete toric variety in algebraic geometry, that takes into account the effects of the monodromy near focus-focus singularities. We give two applications of the helix: first, we use it to give a classification of the minimal models of symplectic se…
For a finite-dimensional (but possibly noncompact) symplectic manifold with a compact group acting with a proper moment map, we show that the square of the moment map is an equivariantly perfect Morse function in the sense of Kirwan, and that the set of critical points of the square of the moment map is a countable discrete union of compact sets. We show that certain integrals of equivariant cohomology classes localizes as a sum of contributions from these compact critical sets, and we bound the contribution from each critical set. In the case (1) that the contribution from higher critical set…
In the present paper, we consider a smooth $C^\infty$ symplectic classification of Lagrangian fibrations near cusp singularities, parabolic orbits and cuspidal tori. We show that for these singularities as well as for an arrangement of singularities known as a flap, which arises in the integrable subcritical Hamiltonian Hopf bifurcation, the action variables form a complete set of $C^\infty$ symplectic invariants. We also give a symplectic classification for parabolic orbits in the real-analytic case. Namely, we prove that a complete symplectic invariant in this case is given by a real-analyti…
For any compact almost complex manifold $(M,J)$, the last two authors defined two subgroups $H_J^+(M)$, $H_J^-(M)$ of the degree 2 real de Rham cohomology group $H^2(M, \mathbb{R})$ in arXiv:0708.2520. These are the sets of cohomology classes which can be represented by $J$-invariant, respectively, $J$-anti-invariant real $2-$forms. In this note, it is shown that in dimension 4 these subgroups induce a cohomology decomposition of $H^2(M, \mathbb{R})$. This is a specifically 4-dimensional result, as it follows from a recent work of Fino and Tomassini. Some estimates for the dimensions of these …