Let $M$ be a compact surface and $P$ be a one dimensional manifold without boundary, that is the line $\mathbb{R}^1$ or a circle $S^1$. The classification of path-components of the space of Morse maps from $M$ into $P$ was recently obtained by S. V. Matveev and V. V. Sharko for the case $P=\mathbb{R}$. For $P=S^1$ the classification was obtained by the author. All this results can be reformulated as one theorem: "Two Morse maps $f,g:M \to P$ belong to the same path component of a space of Morse mappings from $M$ into $P$ if and only if they are homotopic and have the same number of crutucal points in each index and the same sets of positive and negative boundary circles". Here we give another independent proof of this theorem based on Lickorish's theorem on generators of homeotopy group of surface.
For a finitely generated group, there are two recent generalizations of the notion of a quasiconvex subgroup of a word-hyperbolic group, namely a stable subgroup and a Morse or strongly quasiconvex subgroup. Durham and Taylor defined stability and proved stability is equivalent to convex cocompactness in mapping class groups. Another natural generalization of quasiconvexity is given by the notion of a Morse or strongly quasiconvex subgroup of a finitely generated group, studied recently by Tran and Genevois. In general, a subgroup is stable if and only if the subgroup is Morse and hyperbolic. …
We classify the path-components of the space of circle-valued Morse functions on compact surfaces: two Morse functions $f, g: M\to S^1$ belong to same path-component of this space if and only if they are homotopic and have equal numbers of critical points at each index.
Let $M$ be a smooth closed orientable surface. Let $F$ be the space of Morse functions on $M$, and $\mathbb{F}^1$ the space of framed Morse functions, both endowed with $C^\infty$-topology. The space $\mathbb{F}^0$ of special framed Morse functions is defined. We prove that the inclusion mapping $\mathbb{F}^0\hookrightarrow\mathbb{F}^1$ is a homotopy equivalence. In the case when at least $χ(M)+1$ critical points of each function of $F$ are labeled, homotopy equivalences $\mathbb{\widetilde K}\sim\widetilde{\cal M}$ and $F\sim\mathbb{F}^0\sim{\mathscr D}^0\times\mathbb{\widetilde K}$ are prove…
Random walks on spaces with hyperbolic properties tend to sublinearly track geodesic rays which point in certain hyperbolic-like directions. Qing-Rafi-Tiozzo recently introduced the sublinearly Morse boundary and proved that this boundary is a quasi-isometry invariant which captures a notion of generic direction in a broad context. In this article, we develop the geometric foundations of sublinear Morseness in the mapping class group and Teichmüller space. We prove that their sublinearly Morse boundaries are visibility spaces and admit continuous equivariant injections into the boundary of the…
We show the mapping class group, CAT(0) groups, the fundamental groups of closed 3-manifolds, and certain relatively hyperbolic groups have a local-to-global property for Morse quasi-geodesics. This allows us to generalize combination theorems of Gitik for quasiconvex subgroups of hyperbolic groups to the stable subgroups of these groups. In the case of the mapping class group, this gives combination theorems for convex cocompact subgroups. We show a number of additional consequences of this local-to-global property, including a Cartan-Hadamard type theorem for detecting hyperbolicity locally …
For a 3-manifold $M$ with $b_1(M)=1$ fibered over $S^1$ and the fiberwise gradient $ξ$ of a fiberwise Morse function on $M$, we introduce the notion of amidakuji-like path (AL-path) on $M$. An AL-path is a piecewise smooth path on $M$ consisting of edges each of which is either a part of a critical locus of $ξ$ or a flow line of $-ξ$. Counting closed AL-paths with signs gives the Lefschetz zeta function of $M$. The "moduli space" of AL-paths on $M$ gives explicitly Lescop's equivariant propagator, which can be used to define $\mathbb{Z}$-equivariant version of Chern--Simons perturbation theory…
A Morse 2-function is a generic smooth map from a smooth manifold to a surface. In the absence of definite folds (in which case we say that the Morse 2-function is indefinite), these are natural generalizations of broken (Lefschetz) fibrations. We prove existence and uniqueness results for indefinite Morse 2-functions mapping to arbitrary compact, oriented surfaces. "Uniqueness" means there is a set of moves which are sufficient to go between two homotopic indefinite Morse 2-functions while remaining indefinite throughout. We extend the existence and uniqueness results to indefinite, Morse 2-f…
According to Kiyoshi Igusa a generalized Morse function on an n-dimensional manifold M is a smooth function with only Morse and birth-death singularities and a framed function is a generalized Morse function with an additional structure: a framing of the negative eigenspace at each critical point of the function f. In his paper "The space of framed functions" (Trans. of Amer. Math. Soc., 301(1987), 431-477) Igusa proved that the space of framed generalized Morse functions is (n-1)-connected. In the paper "On the Classification of Topological Field Theories" (arXiv:0905.0465) Jacob Lurie gave a…
We generalize a result of Paulin on the Gromov boundary of hyperbolic groups to the Morse boundary of proper, maximal hierarchically hyperbolic spaces admitting cocompact group actions by isometries. Namely we show that if the Morse boundaries of two such spaces each contain at least three points, then the spaces are quasi-isometric if and only if there exists a 2-stable, quasi-möbius homeomorphism between their Morse boundaries. Our result extends a recent result of Charney-Murray, who prove such a classification for CAT(0) groups, and is new for mapping class groups and the fundamental group…
Morse function is called strong if all its critical values are pairwise distinct. Given such a function $f$ and a field $\mathbb{F}$ Barannikov constructed a pairing of some of the critical points of $f$, which is now also known as barcode. With every Barannikov pair we naturally associate (up to sign) an element of $\mathbb{F} \setminus \{0\}$; we call it Bruhat number. The paper is devoted to the study of these Bruhat numbers. We investigate several situations where the product of all these numbers (some being raised to the power $-1$) is independent of $f$ and interpret it as a Reidemeister…
We apply Lescop's construction of $\mathbb{Z}$-equivariant perturbative invariant of knots and 3-manifolds to the explicit equivariant propagator of "AL-paths" given in arXiv:1403.8030. We obtain an invariant $\hat{Z}_n$ of certain equivalence classes of fiberwise Morse functions on a 3-manifold fibered over $S^1$, which can be considered as a higher loop analogue of the Lefschetz zeta function and whose construction will be applied to that of finite type invariants of knots in such a 3-manifold. We also give a combinatorial formula for Lescop's equivariant invariant $\mathscr{Q}$ for 3-manifo…
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.
Let $α$ be a Morse closed $1$-form of a smooth $n$-dimensional manifold $M$. The zeroes of $α$ of index $0$ or $n$ are called \emph{centers}. It is known that every non-vanishing de Rham cohomology class $u$ contains a Morse representative without centers. The result of this paper is the one-parameter analogue of the last statement: every generic path $ (α_t)_{t\in [0,1]}$ of closed $1$-forms in a fixed class $u\neq 0$ such that $α_0, α_1$ have no centers, can be modified relatively to its extremities to another such path $ (β_t)_{t\in [0,1]}$ having no center at all.
Stable subgroups and the Morse boundary are two systematic approaches to collect and study the hyperbolic aspects of finitely generated groups. In this paper we unify and generalize these strategies by viewing any geodesic metric space as a countable union of stable subspaces: we show that every stable subgroup is a quasi--convex subset of a set in this collection and that the Morse boundary is recovered as the direct limit of the usual Gromov boundaries of these hyperbolic subspaces. We use this approach, together with results of Leininger--Schleimer, to deduce that there is no purely geometr…
The aim of this paper is to develop a refinement of Forman's discrete Morse theory. To an acyclic partial matching $μ$ on a finite regular CW complex $X$, Forman introduced a discrete analogue of gradient flows. Although Forman's gradient flow has been proved to be useful in practical computations of homology groups, it is not sufficient to recover the homotopy type of $X$. Forman also proved the existence of a CW complex which is homotopy equivalent to $X$ and whose cells are in one-to-one correspondence with the critical cells of $μ$, but the construction is ad hoc and does not have a combin…
We present a rigidity theorem for the action of the mapping class group $π_0(\mathrm{Diff}(M))$ on the space $\mathcal{R}^+(M)$ of metrics of positive scalar curvature for high dimensional manifolds $M$. This result is applicable to a great number of cases, for example to simply connected $6$-manifolds and high dimensional spheres. Our proof is fairly direct, using results from parametrised Morse theory, the $2$-index theorem and computations on certain metrics on the sphere. We also give a non-triviality criterion and a classification of the action for simply connected $7$-dimensional $\mathr…
Heegaard splittings and Heegaard diagrams of a closed 3-manifold M are translated into the language of Morse functions with Morse-Smale pseudo-gradients defined on M. We make use in a very simple setting of techniques which Jean Cerf developed for solving a famous pseudo-isotopy problem. In passing, we show how to cancel the supernumerary local extrema in a generic path of functions when dim M>2. The main tool that we introduce is an elementary swallow tail lemma which could be useful elsewhere.
Let $M$ be a compact two-dimensional manifold and, $f \in C^{\infty}(M,\mathbb{R})$ be a Morse function, and $Γ_f$ be its Kronrod-Reeb graph. Denote by $\mathcal{O}_{f}=\{f \circ h \mid h \in \mathcal{D}\}$ the orbit of $f$ with respect to the natural right action of the group of diffeomorphisms $\mathcal{D}$ on $C^{\infty}(M,\mathbb{R})$, and by $\mathcal{S}(f)=\{h\in\mathcal{D} \mid f \circ h = f\}$ the corresponding stabilizer of this function. It is easy to show that each $h\in\mathcal{S}(f)$ induces a homeomorphism of $Γ_f$. Let also $\mathcal{D}_{\mathrm{id}}(M)$ be the identity path com…
For a Legendrian knot L in R^3 with a chosen Morse complex sequence (MCS) we construct a differential graded algebra (DGA) whose differential counts "chord paths" in the front projection of L. The definition of the DGA is motivated by considering Morse-theoretic data from generating families. In particular, when the MCS arises from a generating family we give a geometric interpretation of our chord paths as certain broken gradient trajectories which we call "gradient staircases". Given two equivalent MCS's we prove the corresponding linearized complexes of the DGA are isomorphic. If the MCS ha…
In this article, we determine the function $\ell(S_{g, p})$ such that the right-angled Artin group $G(P_{m})$ is embedded in the mapping class group $\mathrm{Mod}(S_{g, p})$ if and only if $m$ is not more than $\ell(S_{g, p})$. Using this function and Birman--Hilden theory, we prove that $\mathrm{Mod}(S_{0, p})$ is virtually embedded in $\mathrm{Mod}(S_{g, 0})$ if and only if $p \leq 2g+2$.
Let S be an orientable surface of finite type. Using Pho-On's infinite unicorn paths, we prove the hyperfiniteness of orbit equivalence relations induced by the actions of the mapping class group of S on the Gromov boundaries of the arc graph and the curve graph of S. In the curve graph case, this strengthens the results of Hamenstädt and Kida that this action is universally amenable and that the mapping class group of S is exact.
In his PhD thesis, Abrams proved that, for a natural number n and a graph G with at least n vertices, the n-strand configuration space of G deformation retracts to a compact subspace, the discretized n-strand configuration space, provided G satisfies two conditions: each path between distinct essential vertices (vertices of degree not equal to 2) is of length at least n+1 edges, and each path from a vertex to itself which is not nullhomotopic is of length at least n+1 edges. Using Forman's discrete Morse theory for CW-complexes, we show the first condition can be relaxed to require only that e…
