The moduli space of flat SU(2) connections on a punctured surface, having prescribed holonomy around the punctures, is a compact smooth manifold if the prescription is generic. This paper gives a direct, elementary proof that the trace of the holonomy around a certain loop determines a Bott-Morse function on the moduli space which is perfect, meaning that the Morse inequalities are equalities. This leads to an attractive recursion for the Betti numbers of the moduli space, which agrees with the Harder-Narasimhan formula in the case of one puncture with holonomy -1.
We present a set of notes on Morse Homology, which grew out of lectures the first named autor gave at Ludwig-Maximilian University in Munich, Seoul National University, and the University of Augsburg. Although we do not discuss Floer homology in these notes, they are written having Floer homology in mind. Therefore, we use concepts which can be generalized to the semi-infinite dimensional case. In the finite dimensional case, they might not always be the most efficient ones but on the other hand, the finite dimensional case has the advantage that these concepts can be visualized much more easi…
Let $M$ be a compact oriented simply-connected manifold of dimension at least 8. Assume $M$ is equipped with a torsion-free semi-free circle action with isolated fixed points. We prove $M$ has a perfect invariant Morse-Smale function. The major ingredient in the proof is a new cancellation theorem for the invariant Morse theory.
We define Floer homology for a time-independent, or autonomous Hamiltonian on a symplectic manifold with contact type boundary, under the assumption that its 1-periodic orbits are transversally nondegenerate. Our construction is based on Morse-Bott techniques for Floer trajectories. Our main motivation is to understand the relationship between linearized contact homology of a fillable contact manifold and symplectic homology of its filling.
Elaborating on works by Abouzaid and Mescher, we prove that for a Morse function on a smooth compact manifold, its Morse cochain complex can be endowed with an $ΩB As$-algebra structure by counting moduli spaces of perturbed Morse gradient trees. This rich structure descends to its already known $A_\infty$-algebra structure. We then introduce the notion of $ΩB As$-morphism between two $ΩB As$-algebras and prove that given two Morse functions, one can construct an $ΩB As$-morphism between their associated $ΩB As$-algebras by counting moduli spaces of two-colored perturbed Morse gradient trees. …
Given a Morse function on a manifold whose moduli spaces of gradient flow lines for each action window are compact up to breaking one gets a bidirect system of chain complexes. There are different possibilities to take limits of such a bidirect system. We discuss in this note the relation between these different limits.
For an equivariant Morse stratification which contains a unique open stratum, we introduce the notion of equivariant antiperfection, which means the difference of the equivariant Morse series and the equivariant Poincare series achieves the maximal possible value (instead of the minimal possible value 0 in the equivariantly perfect case). We also introduce a weaker condition of local equivariant antiperfection. We prove that the Morse stratification of the Yang-Mills functional on the space of connections on a principal U(n)-bundle over a connected, closed, nonorientable surface is locally equ…
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…
It is known that there is a bijection between the perturbed closed geodesics, below a given energy level, on the moduli space of flat connections M and families of perturbed Yang-Mills connections depending on a small parameter. In this paper we study the heat flow on the loop space on M and the Yang-Mills L^2-flows for a 3-manifold N with partial rescaled metrics. Our main result is that the bounded Morse homology of the loop space on M is isomorphic to the bounded Morse homologies of the connections space of N.
We introduce a chain complex associated to a Liouville domain $(\overline{W}, dλ)$ whose boundary $Y$ admits a Boothby--Wang contact form (i.e. is a prequantization space). The differential counts cascades of Floer solutions in the completion $W$ of $\overline{W}$, in the spirit of Morse--Bott homology (as in work of Bourgeois, Frauenfelder arXiv:math/0309373 and Bourgeois-Oancea arXiv:0704.1039). The homology of this complex is the symplectic homology of the completion $W$. We identify a class of simple cascades and show that their moduli spaces are cut out transversely for generic choice of …
We prove several combinatorial results on path algebras over discrete structures related to directed graphs. These results are motivated by Morse theory on a manifold with boundary and, more generally, by Floer theory on a configuration space with boundary. Their purpose is to organize cobordism relationships among moduli spaces in order to define new algebraic invariants. We discuss applications to the Morse and Fukaya categories, and to work with John Baldwin on a bordered monopole Floer theory.
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 …
Let X be any nonsingular complex projective variety on which a complex reductive group G acts linearly, and let X^{ss} and X^s be the sets of semistable and stable points of X in the sense of Mumford's geometric invariant theory. Then X has a G-equivariantly perfect stratification by locally closed nonsingular G-invariant subvarieties with X^{ss} as an open stratum, which can be obtained as the Morse stratification of the normsquare of a moment map for the action of a maximal compact subgroup K of G. In this note this stratification is refined to obtain stratifications of X by locally closed n…
We relate previously defined quantum characteristic classes to Morse theoretic aspects of the Hofer length functional on $\ls$. As an application we prove a theorem which can be interpreted as stating that this functional behaves "virtually" as a perfect Morse-Bott functional with a flow. This can be applied to study topology and Hofer geometry of $ \text {Ham}(M, ω)$. We also use this to give a prediction for the index of some geodesics for this functional, which was recently partially verified by Yael Karshon and Jennifer Slimowitz.
If we consider the moduli space of flat connections of a non trivial principal SO(3)-bundle over a surface, then we can define a map from the set of perturbed closed geodesics, below a given energy level, into families of perturbed Yang-Mills connections depending on a small parameter. In this paper we show that this map is a bijection and maps perturbed geodesics into perturbed Yang-Mills connections with the same Morse index.
We study the analog of the Yang-Mills heat flow on the moduli space of framed bundles on a cut surface. Existence and convergence of the heat flow give a stratification of Morse type invariant under the action of the loop group. We use the stratification to prove versions of Kahler quantization commutes with reduction and Kirwan surjectivity.
In this short note, we compute the Betti numbers of the moduli stack of flat SU(3)-bundles over a Klein bottle. We also handle the general compact group case over RP^2. In all cases the cohomology is found to be equivariantly formal, supporting a conjecture from the author's doctoral thesis. Our results also verify conjectural formulas obtained by Ho-Liu using Yang-Mills Morse theory.
This thesis contains work which appeared in several papers. Additionally to the results in the papers it contains a detailed introduction and some further proofs and remarks. The dissertation gives a description of the topology and symplectic and algebraic geometry of Hitchin's hyperkaehler moduli space M of rank 2 Higgs bundles with fixed determinant of odd degree over a fixed Riemann surface. After the long introduction it describes a compactification of M in great detail, using symplectic cutting (math.AG/9804083). Examining the downward Morse flow of a natural circle action on M it shows t…
We study the Morse theory of the Yang-Mills-Higgs functional on the space of pairs $(A,Φ)$, where $A$ is a unitary connection on a rank 2 hermitian vector bundle over a compact Riemann surface, and $Φ$ is a holomorphic section of $(E, d_A")$. We prove that a certain explicitly defined substratification of the Morse stratification is perfect in the sense of $\G$-equivariant cohomology, where $\G$ denotes the unitary gauge group. As a consequence, Kirwan surjectivity holds for pairs. It also follows that the twist embedding into higher degree induces a surjection on equivariant cohomology. This …
Let $(X,ω)$ be a compact symplectic manifold with a Hamiltonian action of a compact Lie group $G$ and $μ: X\to \mathfrak g$ be its moment map. In this paper, we study the $L^2$-moduli spaces of symplectic vortices on Riemann surfaces with cylindrical ends. We studied a circle-valued action functional whose gradient flow equation corresponds to the symplectic vortex equations on a cylinder $S^1\times \mathbb R$. Assume that $0$ is a regular value of the moment map $μ$, we show that the functional is of Bott-Morse type and its critical points of the functional form twisted sectors of the symplec…
We present an elementary computational scheme for the moduli spaces of rational pseudo-holomorphic curves in the symplectizations of 3-dimensional lens spaces, which are equipped with Morse-Bott contact forms induced by the standard Morse-Bott contact form on $S^3$. As an application, we prove that for $p$ prime and $1<q,q'<p-1$, if there is a contactomorphism between lens spaces $L(p,q)$ and $L(p,q')$, where both spaces are equipped with their standard contact structures, then $q\equiv (q')^{\pm 1}$ in$\mod p$. For the proof we study the moduli spaces of pair of pants with two non-contractibl…
We introduce the notion of a logarithmic stable map from a minimal log prestable curve to a log twisted semi-stable variety of form $xy=0$. We study the compactification of the moduli spaces of such maps and provide a perfect obstruction theory, applicable to the moduli spaces of (un)ramified stable maps and stable relative maps. As an application, we obtain a modular desingularization of the main component of Kontsevich's moduli space of elliptic stable maps to a projective space.
We study the coherent orientations of the moduli spaces of holomorphic curves in Symplectic Field Theory, generalizing a construction due to Floer and Hofer. In particular we examine their behavior at multiple closed Reeb orbits under change of the asymptotic direction. The orientations are determined by a certain choice of orientation at each closed Reeb orbit, that is similar to the orientation of the unstable tangent spaces of critical points in finite--dimensional Morse theory.
Let G be a torus of dimension n > 1 and M a compact Hamiltonian G-manifold with $M^G$ finite. A circle, $S^1$, in G is generic if $M^G = M^{S^1}$. For such a circle the moment map associated with its action on M is a perfect Morse function. Let $\{ W_p^+ ; p \in M^G\}$ be the Morse-Whitney stratification of M associated with this function, and let $τ_p^+$ be the equivariant Thom class dual to $W_p^+$. These classes form a basis of $H_G^*(M)$ as a module over $\SS(\fg^*)$ and, in particular, $$τ_p^+ τ_q^+ = \sum c_{pq}^r τ_r^+$$ with $c_{pq}^r \in \SS(\fg^*)$. For manifolds of GKM type we obtai…
Using Morse-Bott techniques adapted to the gauge-theoretic setting, we show that the limiting boundary values of the space of finite energy monopoles on a connected 3-manifold with at least two cylindrical ends provides an immersed Lagrangian submanifold of the vortex moduli space at infinity. By studying the signed intersections of such Lagrangians, we supply the analytic details of Donaldson's TQFT construction of the Seiberg-Witten invariants of a closed 3-manifold.
