A homology stratification is a filtered space with local homology groups constant on strata. Despite being used by Goresky and MacPherson [Intersection homology theory: II, Inventiones Mathematicae, 71 (1983) 77-129] in their proof of topological invariance of intersection homology, homology stratifications do not appear to have been studied in any detail and their properties remain obscure. Here we use them to present a simplified version of the Goresky-MacPherson proof valid for PL spaces, and we ask a number of questions. The proof uses a new technique, homology general position, which sheds light on the (open) problem of defining generalised intersection homology.
A topological approach to stratification learning is developed for point cloud data drawn from a stratified space. Given such data, our objective is to infer which points belong to the same strata. First we define a multi-scale notion of a stratified space, giving a stratification for each radius level. We then use methods derived from kernel and cokernel persistent homology to cluster the data points into different strata, and we prove a result which guarantees the correctness of our clustering, given certain topological conditions; some geometric intuition for these topological conditions is…
Within its traditional range of perversity parameters, intersection cohomology is a topological invariant of pseudomanifolds. This is no longer true once one allows superperversities, in which case intersection cohomology may depend on the choice of the stratification by which it is defined. Topological invariance also does not hold if one allows stratifications with codimension one strata. Nonetheless, both errant situations arise in important situations, the former in the Cappell-Shaneson superduality theorem and the latter in any discussion of pseudomanifold bordism. We show that while full…
We give some constraints on intersection forms of spin 4-manifolds bounded by Seifert rational homology 3-spheres in terms of the $\barμ$ invariant and compare them with those in terms of the $κ$ invariant. We also show that the difference between $κ$ and $-\barμ$ for a Seifert rational homology 3-sphere is at most 2, and under certain extra conditions the difference is 0.
We provide a generalization of the Deligne sheaf construction of intersection homology theory, and a corresponding generalization of Poincaré duality on pseudomanifolds, such that the Goresky-MacPherson, Goresky-Siegel, and Cappell-Shaneson duality theorems all arise as special cases. Unlike classical intersection homology theory, our duality theorem holds with ground coefficients in an arbitrary PID and with no local cohomology conditions on the underlying space. Self-duality does require local conditions, but our perspective leads to a new class of spaces more general than the Goresky-Siegel…
Given a diagram for a trisection of a 4-manifold $X$, we describe the homology and the intersection form of $X$ in terms of the three subgroups of $H_1(Σ;\mathbb{Z})$ generated by the three sets of curves and the intersection pairing on the diagram surface $Σ$. This includes explicit formulas for the second and third homology groups of $X$ as well an algorithm to compute the intersection form. Moreover, we show that all $(g;k,0,0)$-trisections admit "algebraically trivial" diagrams.
We prove Furuta-type bounds for the intersection forms of spin cobordisms between homology 3-spheres. The bounds are in terms of a new numerical invariant of homology spheres, obtained from Pin(2)-equivariant Seiberg-Witten Floer K-theory. In the process we introduce the notion of a Floer K_G-split homology sphere; this concept may be useful in an approach to the 11/8 conjecture.
We construct cup and cap products in intersection (co)homology with field coefficients. The existence of the cap product allows us to give a new proof of Poincare duality in intersection (co)homology which is similar in spirit to the usual proof for ordinary (co)homology of manifolds.
We derive spectral sequences for the intersection homology of stratified fibrations and approximate tubular neighborhoods in manifold stratified spaces. These neighborhoods include regular neighborhoods in PL stratified spaces.
We develop a generalization to non-Witt spaces of the intersection homology theory of Goresky-MacPherson. The second author has described the self-dual sheaves compatible with intersection homology, and the other authors have described a generalization of Cheeger's L2 de Rham cohomology. In this paper we extend both of these cohomologies by describing all sheaf complexes in the derived category of constructible sheaves that are compatible with middle perversity intersection cohomology, though not necessarily self-dual. On Thom-Mather stratified spaces this refined intersection cohomology theor…
Let G be a finite group acting freely on a compact oriented surface S by homeomorphisms preserving the orientation. Then, there exists a G-invariant Lagrangian subspace in the first homology group of S.
In this paper, we develop Leray-Serre-type spectral sequences to compute the intersection homology of the regular neighborhood and deleted regular neighborhood of the bottom stratum of a stratified PL-pseudomanifold. The E^2 terms of the spectral sequences are given by the homology of the bottom stratum with a local coefficient system whose stalks consist of the intersection homology modules of the link of this stratum (or the cone on this link). In the course of this program, we establish the properties of stratified fibrations over unfiltered base spaces and of their mapping cylinders. We al…
We show that intersection homology extends Poincare duality to manifold homotopically stratified spaces (satisfying mild restrictions). This includes showing that, on such spaces, the sheaf of singular intersection chains is quasi-isomorphic to the Deligne sheaf.
We solve some computational problems for triangulated closed three-dimensional manifolds using groups of simplicial homology and cohomology modulo 2. Two efficient algorithms for computing the intersection numbers of 1- and 2-dimensional cycles are developed. By means of these algorithms it is possible to construct a basis of cohomology group from the homology group of two cycles of complementary dimensions.
We compare the sheaf-theoretic and singular chain versions of Poincare duality for intersection homology, showing that they are isomorphic via naturally defined maps. Similarly, we demonstrate the existence of canonical isomorphisms between the singular intersection cohomology cup product, the hypercohomology product induced by the Goresky-MacPherson sheaf pairing, and, for PL pseudomanifolds, the Goresky-MacPherson PL intersection product. We also show that the de Rham isomorphism of Brasselet, Hector, and Saralegi preserves product structures.
We indicate two short proofs of the Goresky-MacPherson topological invariance of intersection homology. One proof is very short but requires the Goresky-MacPherson support and cosupport axioms; the other is slightly longer but does not require these axioms and so is adaptable to more general perversities.
We construct geometric examples of pseudomanifolds that satisfy the Witt condition for intersection homology Poincare duality with respect to certain fields but not others. We also compute the bordism theory of $K$-Witt spaces for an arbitrary field $K$, extending results of Siegel for $K=Q$.
Let $\operatorname{Aut}(H_1(N_g;\mathbb Z_2),\cdot )$ be the group of automorphisms on the first homology group with $\mathbb Z_2$ coefficient of a closed non-orientable surface $N_g$ preserving the mod $2$ intersection form. In this paper, we obtain a finite presentation for $\operatorname{Aut}(H_1(N_g;\mathbb Z_2),\cdot )$. As applications we calculate the first homology group and the second homology group of $\operatorname{Aut}(H_1(N_g;\mathbb Z_2),\cdot )$.
We introduce a singular chain intersection homology theory which generalizes that of King and which agrees with the Deligne sheaf intersection homology of Goresky and MacPherson on any topological stratified pseudomanifold, compact or not, with constant or local coefficients, and with traditional perversities or superperversities (those satisfying p(2)>0). For the case p(2)=1, these latter perversitie were introduced by Cappell and Shaneson and play a key role in their superduality theorem for embeddings. We further describe the sheafification of this singular chain complex and its adaptabilit…
Let X be a simply-connected closed oriented 4-manifold and A an embedded surface of genus g and negative self-intersection -N. We show that for fixed genus g there is an upper bound on N if the homology class of A is divisible or characteristic. In particular, for genus zero, there is a lower bound on the self-intersection of embedded spheres in these kinds of homology classes. This question is related to a problem from the Kirby list.
We consider the moduli spaces $\mathcal{M}_d(\ell)$ of a closed linkage with n links and prescribed lengths in d-dimensional Euclidean space. For d>3 these spaces are no longer manifolds generically, but they have the structure of a pseudomanifold. We use intersection homology to assign a ring to these spaces that can be used to distinguish the homeomorphism type of the moduli spaces for a large class of length vectors in the case of d even. This result is a high-dimensional analogue of the Walker conjecture which was proven by Farber, Hausmann and the author.
Cohen, Goresky and Ji showed that there is a Kunneth theorem relating the intersection homology groups $I^{\bar p}H_*(X\times Y)$ to $I^{\bar p}H_*(X)$ and $I^{\bar p}H_*(Y)$, provided that the perversity $\bar p$ satisfies rather strict conditions. We consider biperversities and prove that there is a Künneth theorem relating $I^{\bar p,\bar q}H_*(X\times Y)$ to $I^{\bar p}H_*(X)$ and $I^{\bar q}H_*(Y)$ for all choices of $\bar p$ and $\bar q$. Furthermore, we prove that the Kunneth theorem still holds when the biperversity $p,q$ is "loosened" a little, and using this we recover the Kunneth th…
We show that, if a rational homology 3-sphere $Y$ bounds a positive definite smooth 4-manifold, then there are finitely many negative definite lattices, up to the stable-equivalence, which can be realized as the intersection form of a smooth 4-manifold bounded by $Y$. To this end, we make use of constraints on definite forms bounded by $Y$ induced from Donaldson's diagonalization theorem, and correction term invariants due to Frøyshov, and Ozsváth and Szabó. In particular, we prove that all spherical 3-manifolds satisfy such finiteness property.
It has long been known that every quasi-homogeneous normal complex surface singularity with Q-homology sphere link has universal abelian cover a Brieskorn complete intersection singularity. We describe a broad generalization: First, one has a class of complete intersection normal complex surface singularities called "splice type singularities", which generalize Brieskorn complete intersections. Second, these arise as universal abelian covers of a class of normal surface singularities with Q-homology sphere links, called "splice-quotient singularities". According to the Main Theorem, splice-quo…
Intersection norms are integer norms on the first homology group of a surface. In this article, we prove that there are some polytopes which are not dual unit balls of such norms. By the way, we investigate the set of collections of curves on $Σ$2 whose complement is a disk.
In this paper, we introduce a category of graded commutative rings with certain algebraic morphisms, to investigate the cobordism category of plumbed 3-manifolds. In particular, we define a non-associative distributive algebra that gives necessary conditions for an abstract morphism between the homologies of two plumbed 3-manifolds to be realized geometrically by a cobordism. Here we also consider the homology cobordism monoid, and give a necessary condition using w-invariants for the homology 3-spheres to belong to the inertia group associated to some homology 3-spheres.
Let $M$ be a compact smooth Riemannian $n$-manifold with boundary. We combine Gromov's amenable localization technique with the Poincaré duality to study the {\sf traversally generic} geodesic flows on $SM$, the space of the spherical tangent bundle. Such flows generate stratifications of $SM$, governed by rich universal combinatorics. The stratification reflects the ways in which the flow trajectories are tangent to the boundary $\partial(SM)$. Specifically, we get lower estimates of the numbers of connected components of these flow-generated strata of any given codimension $k$ in terms of th…
While the topological types of {normal} surface singularities with homology sphere link have been classified, forming a rich class, until recently little was known about the possible analytic structures. We proved in [Geom. Topol. 9(2005) 699-755] that many of them can be realized as complete intersection singularities of "splice type", generalizing Brieskorn type. We show that a normal singularity with homology sphere link is of splice type if and only if some naturally occurring knots in the singularity link are themselves links of hypersurface sections of the singular point. The Casson Inva…
We refine the intersection product in homology to an equivariant setting, which unifies several known constructions. As an application, we give a common generalisation of the Chas-Sullivan string product on a manifold and the Chataur-Menichi string product on the classifying space by defining a string product on the Borel construction of a manifold. We prove a vanishing result which enables us to define a secondary product. The secondary product is then used to construct secondary versions of the Chataur-Menichi string product, and the equivariant intersection product in the Borel equivariant …
This work forms a foundational study of factorization homology, or topological chiral homology, at the generality of stratified spaces with tangential structures. Examples of such factorization homology theories include intersection homology, compactly supported stratified mapping spaces, and Hochschild homology with coefficients. Our main theorem characterizes factorization homology theories by a generalization of the Eilenberg--Steenrod axioms; it can also be viewed as an analogue of the Baez--Dolan cobordism hypothesis formulated for the observables, rather than state spaces, of a topologic…
In this paper we present a way of computing a lower bound for genus of any smooth representative of a homology class of positive self-intersection in a smooth four-manifold $X$ with second positive Betti number $b_2^+(X)=1$. We study the solutions of the Seiberg-Witten equations on the cylindrical end manifold which is the complement of the surface representing the class. The result can be formulated as a form of generalized adjunction inequality. The bounds obtained depend only on the rational homology type of the manifold, and include the Thom conjecture as a special case. We generalize this…
This paper introduces an intersection theory problem for maps into a smooth manifold equipped with a stratification. We investigate the problem in the special case when the target is the unitary group and the domain is a circle. The first main result is an index theorem that equates a global intersection index with a finite sum of locally defined intersection indices. The local indices are integers arising from the geometry of the stratification. The result is used to study a well-known problem in chemical physics, namely, the problem of enumerating the electronic excitations (excitons) of a m…
We introduce explicit holonomy perturbations of the Chern-Simons functional on a 3-ball containing a pair of unknotted arcs. These perturbations give us a concrete local method for making the moduli spaces of flat singular SO(3) connections relevant to Kronheimer and Mrowka's singular instanton knot homology non-degenerate. The mechanism for this study is a (Lagrangian) intersection diagram which arises, through restriction of representations, from a tangle decomposition of a knot. When one of the tangles is trivial, our perturbations allow us to study isolated intersections of two Lagrangians…
Given a Heegaard splitting of a three-manifold Y, we consider the SL(2,C) character variety of the Heegaard surface, and two complex Lagrangians associated to the handlebodies. We focus on the smooth open subset corresponding to irreducible representations. On that subset, the intersection of the Lagrangians is an oriented d-critical locus in the sense of Joyce. Bussi associates to such an intersection a perverse sheaf of vanishing cycles. We prove that in our setting, the perverse sheaf is an invariant of Y, i.e., it is independent of the Heegaard splitting. The hypercohomology of this sheaf …
Coloured Jones and Alexander polynomials are sequences of quantum invariants recovering the Jones and Alexander polynomials at the first terms. We show that they can be seen conceptually in the same manner, using topological tools, as intersection pairings in covering spaces between explicit homology classes given by Lagrangian submanifolds. The main result proves that the $N^{th}$ coloured Jones polynomial and $N^{th}$ coloured Alexander polynomial come as different specialisations of an intersection pairing of the same homology classes over two variables, with extra framing corrections in ea…
