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

We study a smooth analogue of jumping curves of a holomorphic vector bundle, and use Yang-Mills theory over $ S ^{2} $ to show that any non-trivial, smooth Hermitian vector bundle $E $ over a smooth simply connected manifold, must have such curves. This is used to give new examples complex manifolds for which a non-trivial holomorphic vector bundle must have jumping curves in the classical sense, (when $c_1 (E)$ is zero). We also use this to give a new proof a theorem of Grom...

In this paper, we study the Yang-Mills functional on quantum Heisenberg manifolds using the appratuses developed by A. Connes and M. Rieffel. It is discovered that a connection on a projective module over a quantum Heisenberg manifold is a minimum of Yang-Mills functional whicih is a critical point that is different with critical points found by S. Kang.

We discuss generic smooth maps from smooth manifolds to smooth surfaces, which we call "Morse 2-functions", and homotopies between such maps. The two central issues are to keep the fibers connected, in which case the Morse 2-function is "fiber-connected", and to avoid local extrema over 1-dimensional submanifolds of the range, in which case the Morse 2-function is "indefinite". This is foundational work for the long-range goal of defining smooth invariants from Morse 2-functi...

Fix a $C^\infty$ principal $G$--bundle $E^0_G$ on a compact connected Riemann surface $X$, where $G$ is a connected complex reductive linear algebraic group. We consider the gradient flow of the Yang--Mills--Higgs functional on the cotangent bundle of the space of all smooth connections on $E^0_G$. We prove that this flow preserves the subset of Higgs $G$--bundles, and, furthermore, the flow emanating from any point of this subset has a limit. Given a Higgs $G$--bundle, we id...

We consider Lie G-valued Yang-Mills fields on the space R x G/H, where G/H is a compact nearly K"ahler six-dimensional homogeneous space, and the manifold R x G/H carries a G_2-structure. After imposing a general G-invariance condition, Yang-Mills theory with torsion on R x G/H is reduced to Newtonian mechanics of a particle moving in R^6, R^4 or R^2 under the influence of an inverted double-well-type potential for the cases G/H = SU(3)/U(1)xU(1), Sp(2)/Sp(1)xU(1) or G_2/SU(3...

We prove parabolic versions of several known gap theorems in classical Yang-Mills theory. On an $\mathrm{SU}(r)$-bundle of charge $\kappa$ over the 4-sphere, we show that the space of all connections with Yang-Mills energy less than $4 \pi^2 \left( |\kappa| + 2 \right)$ deformation-retracts under Yang-Mills flow onto the space of instantons, allowing us to simplify the proof of Taubes's path-connectedness theorem. On a compact quaternion-K\"ahler manifold with positive scalar...

For a closed Riemannian manifold $M^{n+1}$ with a compact Lie group $G$ acting as isometries, the equivariant min-max theory gives the existence and the potential abundance of minimal $G$-invariant hypersurfaces provided $3\leq {\rm codim}(G\cdot p) \leq 7$ for all $p\in M$. In this paper, we show a compactness theorem for these min-max minimal $G$-hypersurfaces and construct a $G$-invariant Jacobi field on the limit. Combining with an equivariant bumpy metrics theorem, we ob...

We study a functional that derives from the classical Yang-Mills functional and Born-Infeld theory. We establish its first variation formula and prove the existence of critical points. We also obtain the second variation formula.

In this work we are focused on the existence of Morse functions on a closed manifold $M$ which are far from being ordered, i.e. whose Reeb graphs have positive first Betti number, especially the maximal possible, equals $\operatorname{corank}(\pi_1(M))$. In the case of $3$-manifolds we describe the minimal number of critical points needed to construct such functions, which is related with the number of vertices of degree $2$ in Reeb graphs. We define a new invariant of $3$-ma...

It is well known that the cohomology groups of a closed manifold $M$ can be reconstructed using the gradient dynamical of a Morse-Smale function $f\colon M\to \R$. A direct result of this construction are Morse inequalities that provide lower bounds for the number of critical points of $f$ in term of Betti numbers of $M$. These inequalities can be deduced through a purely analytic method by studying the asymptotic behaviour of the deformed Laplacian operator. This method was ...