Morse theory for the Yang-Mills functional via equivariant homotopy theory

In math.SG/0605587, we studied Yang-Mills functional on the space of connections on a principal G_R-bundle over a closed, connected, nonorientable surface, where G_R is any compact connected Lie group. In this sequel, we generalize the discussion in "The Yang-Mills equations over Riemann surfaces" by Atiyah and Bott, and math.SG/0605587. We obtain explicit descriptions (as representation varieties) of Morse strata of Yang-Mills functional on orientable and nonorientable surfa...

In "The Yang-Mills equations over Riemann surfaces", Atiyah and Bott studied Yang-Mills functional over a Riemann surface from the point of view of Morse theory. We generalize their study to all closed, compact, connected, possibly nonorientable surfaces. We introduce the notion of "super central extension" of the fundamental group of a surface. It is the central extension when the surface is orientable. We establish a precise correspondence between Yang-Mills connections and...

We present a new construction of tubular neighborhoods in (possibly infinite dimensional) Riemannian manifolds M, which allows us to show that if G is an arbitrary group acting isometrically on M, then every G-invariant submanifold with locally trivial normal bundle has a G-invariant total tubular neighborhood. We apply this result to the Morse strata of the Yang-Mills functional over a closed surface. The resulting neighborhoods play an important role in calculations of gaug...

In this paper, we develop methods for calculating equivariant homology from equivariant Morse functions on a closed manifold with the action of a finite group. We show how to alter $G$-equivariant Morse functions to a stable one, where the descending manifold from a critical point $p$ has the same stabilizer group as $p$, giving a better-behaved cell structure on $M$. For an equivariant, stable Morse function, we show that a generic equivariant metric satisfies the Morse--Sma...

The geometry of submanifolds is intimately related to the theory of functions and vector bundles. It has been of fundamental importance to find out how those two objects interact in many geometric and physical problems. A typical example of this relation is that the Picard group of line bundles on an algebraic manifold is isomorphic to the group of divisors, which is generated by holomorphic hypersurfaces modulo linear equivalence. A similar correspondence can be made between...

We introduce higher order variants of the Yang-Mills functional that involve $(n-2)$th order derivatives of the curvature. We prove coercivity and smoothness of critical points in Uhlenbeck gauge in dimensions $\mathrm{dim}M\le 2n$. These results are then used to establish the existence of smooth minimizers on a given principal bundle $P\to M$ for subcritical dimensions $\mathrm{dim}M<2n$. In the case of critical dimension $\mathrm{dim}M=2n$ we construct a minimizer on a bund...

This early trial has been withdrawn by the author. For a completed and published version cf. arXiv:math/0608597v5.

In this article, we focus on the invariance property of Morse homology on noncompact manifolds. We expect to apply outcomes of this article to several types of Floer homology, thus we define Morse homology purely axiomatically and algebraically. The Morse homology on noncompact manifolds generally depends on the choice of Morse functions; it is easy to see that critical points may escape along homotopies of Morse functions on noncompact manifolds. Even worse, homology classes...

We study the Morse theory of the Yang-Mills-Higgs functional on the space of pairs $(A,\Phi)$, where $A$ is a unitary connection on a rank 2 hermitian vector bundle over a compact Riemann surface, and $\Phi$ 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 hold...

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 $\chi(M)+1$ 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 t...