arXiv research

Paper studies gradient fields from discrete Morse functions for watershed-cut computation.

Proves properties of Morse vector fields on compact manifolds.

The Morse function $f$ near a non-degenerate critical point $p$ is understood topologically, in the light of Morse's lemma. However, Morse's lemma standardizes the function $f$ itself, providing little information of how the gradient $\nabla f$ behaves. In this paper, we prove an analytical analogue of Morse's lemma, s…

The paper studies connectivity properties of Morse complexes as simplicial complexes grow.

Global Morse index theorem applied to Jacobi fields on CMC surfaces.

Floer constructs homology from flow lines in generalized dynamical systems and combinatorial vector fields.

The paper classifies surfaces formed by quadrilateral gluings.

The paper proves functions related to mean field equations on surfaces are Morse functions under certain conditions.

The complete invariant for gradient like Morse-Smale dynamical systems (vector fields and diffeomorphisms) on closed 4-manifolds are constructed. It is same as Kirby diagram in a case of polar vector field without fixed points of index 3.

The topological classification of gradient like Morse-Smale vector fields and diffeomorphisms on 3-manifolds was obtained.

The study identifies all possible vector field structures on specific 2D shapes.

In this paper we give an overview of different Morse-theoretic methods used to study the topology of moduli spaces of Higgs bundles.

Given a compact smooth manifold $M$ with non-empty boundary and a Morse function, a pseudo-gradient Morse-Smale vector field adapted to the boundary allows one to build a Morse complex whose homology is isomorphic to the (absolute or relative to the boundary) homology of $M$ with integer coefficients. Our approach simp…

We define the geometric complex associated to a Morse-Bott-Smale vector field, cf. [Austin-Braam, 1995], and its associated spectral sequence. We prove an extension of the Bismut-Zhang theorem to Morse-Bott-Smale functions. The proof is based on the Bismut-Zhang theorem for Morse-Smale functions, see [Bismut-Zhang, 199…

We develop the formal analogue of the Morse theory for a pair of commuting gradient-like vector fields. The resulting algebraic formalism turns out to be very similar to the algebra of the infrared of Gaiotto, Moore and Witten (see [GMW], [KKS]): from a manifold M with the pair of gradient-like commuting vector fields,…

This paper begins the study of Morse theory for orbifolds, or more precisely for differentiable Deligne-Mumford stacks. The main result is an analogue of the Morse inequalities that relates the orbifold Betti numbers of an almost-complex orbifold to the critical points of a Morse function on the orbifold. We also show …

Given a Lorentzian manifold $(M,g)$, a geodesic $γ$ in $M$ and a timelike Jacobi field $\mathcal Y$ along $γ$, we introduce a special class of instants along $γ$ that we call $\mathcal Y$-pseudo conjugate (or focal relatively to some initial orthogonal submanifold). We prove that the $\mathcal Y$-pseudo conjugate insta…

The paper develops algorithms and topological invariants for distinguishing dynamic systems.

For a closed oriented 3-manifold $Y$ we define $n(Y)$ to be the minimal non-negative number such that in each homotopy class of non-singular vector fields of $Y$ there is a Morse-Smale vector field with less or equal to $n(Y)$ periodic orbits. We combine the construction process of Morse-Smale flows given in [2] with h…

Our objective is to develop a stratified Morse theory with tangential conditions. We define a continuous strata-wise smooth Morse function on an abstract stratified space by using control conditions and radiality assumptions on the gradient vector field. For critical points of a Morse function one can show that the loc…

We study topology change in (2+1)D gravity coupling with non-Abelian SO(2,1) Higgs field from the point of view of Morse theory. It is shown that the Higgs potential can be identified as a Morse function. The critical points of the latter (i.e. loci of change of the spacetime topology) coincide with zeros of the Higgs …

New methods merge discrete gradient fields from patches to correct errors.

In this paper, we study Vanishing Mean Oscillation vector fields on a compact manifold with boundary. Inspired by the work of Brezis and Niremberg, we construct a topological invariant - the index - for such fields, and establish the analogue of Morse's formula. As a consequence, we characterize the set of boundary dat…

Along with excursions into manifolds with corners, resolution towers of Thom and Whitney stratifications, I show that for a generic gradientlike vector field on a manifold with a Morse function, the stable manifolds give a CW decomposition of the manifold. This has been done before.

Combines techniques to remove tameness condition in Morse-Smale flows.

We consider different notions of equivalence for Morse functions on the sphere in the context of persistent homology, and introduce new invariants to study these equivalence classes. These new invariants are as simple, but more discerning than existing topological invariants, such as persistence barcodes and Reeb graph…

Let G be a compact Lie group and A(G) its Burnside Ring. For a compact smooth n-dimensional G-manifold X equipped with a generic G-invariant vector field v, we prove an equivariant analog of the Morse formula Ind^G(v) = \sum_{k = 0}^{n} (-1)^k χ^G(\d_k^+X) which takes its values in A(G). Here Ind^G(v) denotes the equiv…

We show that the index of a lightlike geodesic in a conformally standard stationary spacetime is equal to the index of its spatial projection as a geodesic of a Finsler metric associated to the spacetime. Moreover we obtain the Morse relations of lightlike geodesics connecting a point to an integral line of the standar…

Given a finite set of points in $\mathbb R^n$ and a radius parameter, we study the Čech, Delaunay-Čech, Delaunay (or Alpha), and Wrap complexes in the light of generalized discrete Morse theory. Establishing the Čech and Delaunay complexes as sublevel sets of generalized discrete Morse functions, we prove that the four…

Characterizes nodal volumes of Gaussian fields on manifolds, extending previous work.

Stability of Morse index for Yang-Mills connections in 4D.

This is a survey article on Morse theory based on lectures to graduate students and advanced undergraduates. After a brief review of standard material, mostly without proofs, the Morse theory of complex Grassmannian manifolds is worked out in detail. In contrast to standard treatments, gradient flow lines and their str…

In the first part of this paper, we consider smooth maps from a compact orientable 3-manifold without boundary to the 2-sphere. We give a geometric criterion to decide whether two given maps are homotopic, based on the sets of points where the maps are equal or antipodal. We extend this criterion to non-singular vector…

Researchers use discrete Morse theory to improve the topology of matching complexes of complete graphs.

We consider a vector field $X$ on a closed manifold which admits a Lyapunov one form. We assume $X$ has Morse type zeros, satisfies the Morse--Smale transversality condition and has non-degenerate closed trajectories only. For a closed one form $η$, considered as flat connection on the trivial line bundle, the differen…

Given a Morse function f on a closed manifold M with distinct critical values, and given a field F, there is a canonical complex, called the Morse-Barannikov complex, which is equivalent to any Morse complex associated with f and whose form is simple. In particular, the homology of M with coefficients in F is immediate…

Given a circle-valued Morse function of a closed oriented manifold, we prove that Reidemeister torsion over a non-commutative formal Laurent polynomial ring equals the product of a certain non-commutative Lefschetz-type zeta function and the algebraic torsion of the Novikov complex over the ring. This paper gives a gen…

Paper shows equivalence between MM and PH for n-D Morse functions.

Let $f$ be a Morse function on a closed manifold $M$, and $v$ be a Riemannian gradient of $f$ satisfying the transversality condition. The classical construction (due to Morse, Smale, Thom, Witten), based on the counting of flow lines joining critical points of the function $f$ associates to these data the Morse comple…

In this paper we discuss a general framework based on symplectic geometry for the study of second order conditions in constrained variational problems on curves. Using the notion of L-derivatives we construct Jacobi curves, which represent a generalization of Jacobi fields from the classical calculus of variations, but…

This paper studies the associativity of gluing of trajectories in Morse theory. We show that the associativity of gluing follows from of the existence of compatible manifold with face structures on the compactified moduli spaces. Using our previous work, we obtain the associativity of gluing in certain cases. In partic…

By studying spaces of flow graphs in a closed oriented manifold, we construct operations on its cohomology, parametrized by the homology of the moduli spaces of compact Riemann surfaces with boundary marked points. We show that the operations satisfy the gluing axiom of an open homological conformal field theory. This …

The study refines stability results for Yang-Mills fields and harmonic maps.

In this paper we are concerned with harmonic maps and minimal immersions defined on compact Riemannian manifolds and with values in homogenous strongly harmonic manifolds. We show some results on the Morse index by varying these maps along suitable conformal vector fields. We obtain also that they are global maxima on …

In this paper, we compute the Morse index for a free boundary minimal submanifold from data of two simpler problems. The first one is the corresponding problem with fixed boundary condition; and the second is associated with the Dirichlet-to-Neumann map for Jacobi fields. As an application, we show that the Morse index…

We define an invariant of rational homology 3-spheres via vector fields. The construction of our invariant is a generalization of both that of the Kontsevich-Kuperberg-Thurston invariant and that of Watanabe's Morse homotopy invariant, which implies the equivalence of these two invariants.

In this paper, we study Lipschitz-Fredholm vector fields on Bounded-Fréchet-Finsler manifolds. In this context we generalize the Morse-Sard-Brown theorem, asserting that if $M$ is a connected smooth bounded-Fréchet-Finsler manifold endowed with a strengthened connection $\mathcal{K}$ and if $ξ$ is a smooth Lipschitz-Fr…

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 …