We explicitly calculate the fundamental group of the space $\mathcal F$ of all immersed closed curves on a surface $F$. It is shown that $π_n(\mathcal F)=0$, n>1 for $F\neq S^2, RP^2$. It is also proved that $π_2(\mathcal F)=\Z$, and $π_n(\mathcal F)=π_n(S^2)\oplusπ_{n+1}(S^2)$, n>2, for $F$ equal to $S^2$ or $RP^2$.
The aim of this paper is to show the rigidity of homologically trivial actions of prime order on K3 surfaces. To be precise, we show that homotopy K3 surfaces do not admit a periodic diffeomorphism of odd prime order 3 acting trivially on cohomology. Moreover, we give an obstruction in terms of the rationality and sign of the spin numbers to the existence of a periodic diffeomorphism of odd prime order acting trivially on cohomology of homotopy K3 surfaces.
The purpose of these notes is to show that the methods introduced by Bauer and Furuta in order to refine the Seiberg-Witten invariants of smooth 4-dimensional manifolds can also be used to obtain stable homotopy classes from Riemann surfaces, using the vortex equations on the latter.
A flat virtual link is a finite collection of oriented closed curves $\mathfrak L$ on an oriented surface $M$ considered up to virtual homotopy, i.e., a composition of elementary stabilizations, destabilizations, and homotopies. Specializing to a pair of curves $(L_1,L_2)$, we show that the minimal number of intersection points of curves in the virtual homotopy class of $(L_1, L_2)$ equals to the number of terms of a generalization of the Anderson--Mattes--Reshetikhin Poisson bracket. Furthermore, considering a single curve, we show that the minimal number of self-intersections of a curve in i…
Under mild assumptions on a group G, we prove that the class of complete Riemannian n-manifolds of uniformly bounded negative sectional curvatures and with the fundamental groups isomorphic to G breaks into finitely many tangential homotopy types. It follows that many aspherical manifolds do not admit complete negatively curved metrics with prescribed curvature bounds.
We construct a triangulation of a compactification of the Moduli space of a surface with at least one puncture that is closely related to the Deligne-Mumford compactification. Specifically, there is a surjective map from the compactification we construct to the Deligne-Mumford compactification so that the inverse image of each point is contractible. In particular our compactification is homotopy equivalent to the Deligne-Mumford compactification.
We prove that any two irreducible cuspidal Hurwitz curves $C_0$ and $C_1$ (or more generally, curves with A-type singularities) in the Hirzebruch surface $F_N$ with coinciding homology classes and sets of singularities are regular homotopic; and symplectically regular homotopic if $C_0$ and $C_1$ are symplectic with respect to a compatible symplectic form.
A smooth curve $γ: [0,1] \to \Ss^2$ is locally convex if its geodesic curvature is positive at every point. J. A. Little showed that the space of all locally convex curves $γ$ with $γ(0) = γ(1) = e_1$ and $γ'(0) = γ'(1) = e_2$ has three connected components $L_{-1,c}$, $L_{+1}$, $L_{-1,n}$. The space $\cL_{-1,c}$ is known to be contractible. We prove that $\cL_{+1}$ and $\cL_{-1,n}$ are homotopy equivalent to $(Ω\Ss^3) \vee \Ss^2 \vee \Ss^6 \vee \Ss^{10} \vee \cdots$ and $(Ω\Ss^3) \vee \Ss^4 \vee \Ss^8 \vee \Ss^{12} \vee \cdots$, respectively. As a corollary, we deduce the homotopy type of the…
A smooth curve $γ: [0,1] \to S^2$ is locally convex if its geodesic curvature is positive at every point. J. A. Little showed that the space of all locally positive curves $γ$ with $γ(0) = γ(1) = e_1$ and $γ'(0) = γ'(1) = e_2$ has three connected components $L_{-1,c}$, $L_{+1}$, $L_{-1,n}$. The space $L_{-1,c}$ is known to be contractible but the topology of the other two connected components is not well understood. We prove that all connected components of $L_I$ are simply connected, that $H^2(L_{+1};Z) = Z^2$ and $H^2(L_{-1,n};Z) = Z$.
We discuss the homotopy type and the cohomology of spaces of locally convex parametrized curves gamma: [0,1] -> S^2, i.e., curves with positive geodesic curvature. The space of all such curves with gamma(0) = gamma(1) = e_1 and gamma'(0) = gamma'(1) = e_2 is known to have three connected components X_{-1,c}, X_1, X_{-1}. We show several results concerning the homotopy type and cohomology of these spaces. In particular, X_{-1,c} is contractible, X_1 and X_{-1} are simply connected, pi_2(X_{-1}) contains a copy of Z and pi_2(X_1) contains a copy of Z^2. Also, H^n(X_{1}, R) and H^n(X_{-1}, R) are…
We introduce the concept of a homotopy motion of a subset in a manifold, and give a systematic study of homotopy motions of surfaces in closed orientable 3-manifolds. This notion arises from various natural problems in 3-manifold theory such as domination of manifold pairs, homotopical behavior of simple loops on a Heegaard surface, and monodromies of virtual branched covering surface bundles associated to a Heegaard splitting.
A smooth curve $γ: [0,1] \to S^2$ is locally convex if its geodesic curvature is positive at every point. J. A. Little showed that the space of all locally positive curves $γ$ with $γ(0) = γ(1) = e_1$ and $γ'(0) = γ'(1) = e_2$ has three connected components $L_{-1,c}$, $L_{+1}$, $L_{-1,n}$. The space $L_{-1,c}$ is known to be contractible but the topology of the other two connected components is not well understood. We study the homotopy and cohomology of these spaces. In particular, for $L_{-1} = L_{-1,c} \sqcup L_{-1,n}$, we show that $\dim H^{2k}(L_{(-1)^{k}}, \RR) \ge 1$, that $\dim H^{2k}…
We discuss links in thickened surfaces. We define the Khovanov-Lipshitz-Sarkar stable homotopy type and the Steenrod square for the homotopical Khovanov homology of links in thickened surfaces with genus$>1$. A surface means a closed oriented surface unless otherwise stated. Of course, a surface may or may not be the sphere. A thickened surface means a product manifold of a surface and the interval. A link in a thickened surface (respectively, a 3-manifold) means a submanifold of a thickened surface (respectively, a 3-manifold) which is diffeomorphic to a disjoint collection of circles. Our Kh…
A curve $γ: [0,1] \rightarrow S^n$ of class $C^k$ ($k \geqslant n$) is locally convex if the vectors $γ(t), γ'(t), γ"(t), \cdots, γ^{(n)}(t)$ are a positive orthonormal basis to $R^{n+1}$ for all $t \in [0,1]$. Given an integer $n \geq 2$ and $Q \in SO_{n+1}$, let $LS^n(Q)$ be the set of all locally convex curves $γ: [0,1] \rightarrow S^n$ with fixed initial and final Frenet frame $F_γ(0)=I$ and $F_γ(1)=Q$. Saldanha and Shapiro proved that there are just finitely many non-homeomorphic spaces among $LS^n(Q)$ when $Q$ varies in $SO_{n+1}$ (in particular, at most $3$ for $n=3$). For any $n \geqsl…
A study on the relation between the smooth structure of a symplectic homotopy K3 surface and its symplectic symmetries is initiated. A measurement of exoticness of a symplectic homotopy K3 surface is introduced, and the influence of an effective action of a K3 group via symplectic symmetries is investigated. It is shown that an effective action by various maximal symplectic K3 groups forces the corresponding homotopy K3 surface to be minimally exotic with respect to our measure. (However, the standard K3 is the only known example of such minimally exotic homotopy K3 surfaces.) The possible str…
Given a compact orientable surface of negative Euler characteristic, there exists a natural pairing between the Teichmueuller space of the surface and the set of homotopy classes of simple loops and arcs. The length pairing sends a hyperbolic metric and a homotopy class of a simple loop or arc to the length of geodesic in its homotopy class. We study this pairing function using the Fenchel-Nielsen coordinates on Teichmueller space and the Dehn-Thurston coordinates on the space of homotopy classes of curve systems. Our main result establishes Lipschitz type estimates for the length pairing expr…
We prove a "gluing" theorem for monotone homotopies; a monotone homotopy is a homotopy through simple contractible closed curves which themselves are pairwise disjoint. We show that two monotone homotopies which have appropriate overlap can be replaced by a single monotone homotopy. The ideas used to prove this theorem are used in [CL2] to prove an analogous result for cycles, which forms a critical step in their proof of the existence of minimal surfaces in complete non-compact manifolds of finite volume. We also show that, if monotone homotopies exist, then fixed point contractions through s…
A triple chord is a sub-diagram of a chord diagram that consists of a circle and finitely many chords connecting the preimages for every double point on a spherical curve, and it has exactly three chords giving the triple intersection. This paper describes some relationships between the number of triple chords and an equivalence relation called strong (1, 2) homotopy, which consists of the first and one kind of the second Reidemeister moves involving inverse self-tangency if the curve is given any orientation. We show that a prime knot projection is trivialized by strong (1, 2) homotopy, if it…
We use classical results in smoothing theory to extract information about the rational homotopy groups of the space of negatively curved metrics on a high dimensional manifold. It is also shown that smooth M-bundles over spheres equipped with fiberwise negatively curved metrics, represent elements of finite order in the homotopy groups of the classifying space for smooth M-bundles, provided the dimension of M is large enough.
The paper contains an application of van Kampen theorem for groupoids for computation of homotopy types of certain class of non-compact foliated surfaces obtained by gluing at most countably many strips $\mathbb{R}\times(0,1)$ with boundary intervals in $\mathbb{R}\times\{\pm1\}$ along some of those intervals.
We investigate the problem of describing the homotopy classes $[X,Y]$ of continuous functions between $ω$-bounded non metrizable manifolds $X,Y$. We define a family of surfaces $X$ built with the first octant $C$ in $L^2$ ($L$ is the longline and $R$ the longray), and show that $[X,R]$ is in bijection with so called `adapted' subsets of a partially ordered set. We also show that $[M,R]$ can be computed for some surfaces $M$ that, unlike $C$, do not contain $R$. This indicates that when $X,Y$ are $ω$-bounded non metrizable surfaces, there might be a link between $[X,Y]$ and the concept of $Y$-d…
In an earlier paper, I defined a new winding number of regular closed curves on complete euclidean/hyperbolic surfaces and showed that this winding number, together with the free homotopy class, determines the regular homotopy class. In this paper, I give a Whitney-type formula for the winding number of non-null-homotopic generic regular closed curves on surfaces with a complete euclidean or hyperbolic structure, generalizing the formula for curves on a torus by Tanio and Kobayashi.
In this note, we fill in a gap in the literature by proving that the Teichmueller modular groups (mapping class groups) are not Poincare duality groups and the complexes of curves of surfaces have infinite homotopy type (i.e. are not homotopy equivalent to a finite CW-complex).
Let $\mathcal{A}_{g,d}$ be the (topological) cobordism category of orientable surfaces whose connected components are homeomorphic to either $S^1 \times I$ with one incoming and one outgoing boundary component or the surface $Σ_{g,d}$ of genus $g$ and $d$ boundary components that are all incoming. In this paper, we study the homotopy type of the classifying space of the cobordism categories $\mathcal{A}_{g,d}$ and the associated (ordinary) cobordism categories of their connected components $\mathbb{A}_d$. $\mathcal{A}_{0,2}$ is the cobordism category of complex annuli that was considered by Co…
Let $LHT$ be a left handed trefoil knot and $K$ be any knot. We define $M_n(K)$ to be the homology $3$-sphere which is represented by a simple link of $LHT$ and $LHT \sharp K$ with framings $0$ and $n$ respectively. Starting with this link, we construct homotopy $K3$ and spin rational homology $K3$ surfaces containing $M_n(K)$. Then we apply the adjunction inequality to show that if $n>2g^n_s(K)-2$, $M_n(K)$ does not bound any smooth spin rational $4$-ball, and that under the same assumption the negative $n$-twisted Whitehead double of $LHT \sharp K$ is not a slice knot, where $g^n_s(K)$ is th…
In this paper we give the stable classification of ordered, pointed, oriented multi-component curves on surfaces with minimal crossing number less than or equal to 2 such that any equivalent curve has no simply closed curves in its components. To do this, we use the theory of words and phrases which was introduced by V. Turaev. Indeed we give the homotopy classification of nanophrases with less than or equal to 4 letters. It is an extension of the classification of nanophrases of length 2 with less than or equal to 4 letters which was given by the author in a previous paper. This is a correcte…
Let $f$ be a real- or circle-valued Morse function on a compact surface M having exactly $n>0$ critical points. Denote by $O$ the orbit of $f$ with respect to the right action of the group of diffeomorphisms of $M$. We show that the connected components of $O$ have the homotopy type of a finite-dimensional CW-complex. Actually, these connected components are homotopy equivalent to a certain covering space of the $n$-th configuration space of the interior of $M$. As a consequence we obtain that the fundamental group of $O$ is a subgroup of the $n$-th braid group of $M$.
We provide an efficient algorithm to compute the minimum area of a homotopy between two closed plane curves, given that they divide the plane into finite number of regions. For any positive real number $\varepsilon>0$, we construct a closed plane curve $γ$ such that the minimum area of a null homotopy of $2\cdotγ$ is less than $\varepsilon$ times that of $γ$. We also establish a lower bound on how complex a desired closed curve has to be.
We show that the Lusternik-Schnirelmann category of the homotopy cofiber of the diagonal map for non-orientable surfaces equals three. Also, we prove that the topological complexity of non-orientable surfaces of genus $>3$ is four.
Any generic closed curve in the plane can be transformed into a simple closed curve by a finite sequence of local transformations called homotopy moves. We prove that simplifying a planar closed curve with $n$ self-crossings requires $Θ(n^{3/2})$ homotopy moves in the worst case. Our algorithm improves the best previous upper bound $O(n^2)$, which is already implicit in the classical work of Steinitz; the matching lower bound follows from the construction of closed curves with large defect, a topological invariant of generic closed curves introduced by Aicardi and Arnold. Our lower bound also …
Let E(1)_K denote the closed 4-manifold that is homotopy equivalent (hence homeomorphic) to the rational elliptic surface E(1) and is obtained by performing Fintushel-Stern knot surgery on E(1) using a knot K in S^3. We construct an infinite family of homologous non-isotopic symplectic tori representing a primitive homology class in E(1)_K when K is any nontrivial fibred knot in S^3. We also show how these tori can be non-isotopically embedded as homologous symplectic submanifolds in other symplectic 4-manifolds.
We prove the first nontrivial worst-case lower bounds for two closely related problems. First, $Ω(n^{3/2})$ degree-1 reductions, series-parallel reductions, and $Δ$Y transformations are required in the worst case to reduce an $n$-vertex plane graph to a single vertex or edge. The lower bound is achieved by any planar graph with treewidth $Θ(\sqrt{n})$. Second, $Ω(n^{3/2})$ homotopy moves are required in the worst case to reduce a closed curve in the plane with $n$ self-intersection points to a simple closed curve. For both problems, the best upper bound known is $O(n^2)$, and the only lower bo…
We introduce a Kauffman-Jones type polynomial $\mathcal{L}_γ(A)$ for a curve $γ$ on an oriented surface, whose endpoints are on the boundary of the surface. The polynomial $\mathcal{L}_γ(A)$ is a Laurent polynomial in one variable $A$ and is an invariant of the homotopy class of $γ$. As an application, we obtain an estimate in terms of the span of $\mathcal{L}_γ(A)$ for the minimum self-intersection number of a curve within its homotopy class. We then give a chord diagrammatic description of $\mathcal{L}_γ(A)$ and show some computational results on the span of $\mathcal{L}_γ(A)$.
We prove that certain involutions defined by Vogell and Burghelea-Fiedorowicz on the rational algebraic $K$-theory of spaces coincide. This gives a way to compute the positive and negative eigenspaces of the involution on rational homotopy groups of pseudoisotopy spaces from the involution on rational $S^{1}$-equivariant homology group of the free loop space of a simply-connected manifold. As an application, we give explicit dimensions of the open manifolds $V$ that appear in Belegradek-Farrell-Kapovitch's work for which the spaces of complete nonnegatively curved metrics on $V$ have nontrivia…
Let M and N be topological spaces such that M admits a free involution $\τ$. A homotopy class $β$ $\in$ [M, N ] is said to have the Borsuk-Ulam property with respect to $\τ$ if for every representative map f : M $\rightarrow$ N of $β$, there exists a point x $\in$ M such that f ($\τ$ (x)) = f (x). In the case where M is a compact, connected manifold without boundary and N is a compact, connected surface without boundary different from the 2-sphere and the real projective plane, we formulate this property in terms of the pure and full 2-string braid groups of N , and of the fundamental groups o…
We show that mapping class groups associated to all types of real algebraic curves are virtual duality groups. We also deduce some results about the orbifold homotopy groups of the moduli spaces of real algebraic curves. We achieve these results by defining a new complex associated to a not necessarily orientable surface with boundary called the $\mathcal{A}\mathcal{B}\mathcal{C}$-complex. This complex encodes the intersection patterns of isotopy classes of essential simple arcs, boundary components, and essential simple closed curves. We show that this complex is homotopy equivalent to an inf…
Let $M$ be a smooth closed orientable surface. Let $F$ be the space of Morse functions on $M$ having fixed number of critical points of each index, moreover at least $χ(M)+1$ critical points are labeled by different labels (enumerated). A notion of a skew cylindric-polyhedral complex, which generalizes the notion of a polyhedral complex, is introduced. The skew cylindric-polyhedral complex $\mathbb{\widetilde K}$ (the "complex of framed Morse functions"), associated with the space $F$, is defined. In the case when $M=S^2$, the polyhedron $\mathbb{\widetilde K}$ is finite; its Euler characteris…
We show that the Prüfer surface, which is a separable non-metrizable 2-manifold, has not the homotopy type of a CW-complex. This will follow easily from J. H. C. Whitehead's result: if one has a good approximation of an arbitrary space by a CW-complex, which fails to be a homotopy equivalence, then the given space is not homotopy equivalent to a CW-complex.
We consider knotted annuli in 4-space, called 2-string-links, which are knotted surfaces in codimension two that are naturally related, via closure operations, to both 2-links and 2-torus links. We classify 2-string-links up to link-homotopy by means of a 4-dimensional version of Milnor invariants. The key to our proof is that any 2-string link is link-homotopic to a ribbon one; this allows to use the homotopy classification obtained in the ribbon case by P. Bellingeri and the authors. Along the way, we give a Roseman-type result for immersed surfaces in 4-space. We also discuss the case of ri…
We consider various equivalence relations on the set of homotopy classes of curves on a hyperbolic surface based on topological, algebraic, and geometric structures. The purpose of this work is to determine the relationship between these equivalences.
The notion of covering type was recently introduced by Karoubi and Weibel to measure the complexity of a topological space by means of good coverings. When X has the homotopy type of a finite CW-complex, its covering type coincides with the minimum possible number of vertices of a simplicial complex homotopy equivalent to X. In this article we compute the covering type of all closed surfaces. Our results completely settle a problem posed by Karoubi and Weibel, and shed more light on the relationship between the topology of surfaces and the number of vertices of minimal triangulations from a ho…
We study a variation of Turaev's homotopy quantum field theories using 2-categories of surfaces. We define the homotopy surface 2-category of a space $X$ and define an $\cS_X$-structure to be a monoidal 2-functor from this to the 2-category of idempotent-complete additive $k$-linear categories. We initiate the study of the algebraic structure arising from these functors. In particular we show that, under certain conditions, an $\cS_X$-structure gives rise to a lax tortile $π$-category when the background space is an Eilenberg-Maclane space $X=K(π,1)$, and to a tortile category with lax $π_2X$-…
We prove that if $M$ is a CW-complex and $*$ is a 0-cell of $M$, then the crossed module $Π_2(M,M^1,*)$ does not depend on the cellular decomposition of $M$ up to free products with $Π_2(D^2,S^1,*)$, where $M^1$ is the 1-skeleton of $M$. From this it follows that if $G$ is a finite crossed module and $M$ is finite, then the number of crossed module morphisms $Π_2(M,M^1,*) \to G$ (which is finite) can be re-scaled to a homotopy invariant $I_G(M)$ (i. e. not dependent on the cellular decomposition of $M$). We describe an algorithm to calculate $π_2(M,M^{(1)},*)$ as a crossed module over $π_1(M^{…