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

Yang-Mills theory is growing at the interface between high energy physics and mathematics. It is well known that Yang-Mills theory and Gauge theory in general had a profound impact on the development of modern differential and algebraic geometry. One could quote Donaldson invariants in four dimensional differential topology, Hitchin Kobayashi conjecture relating the existence of Hermitian-Einstein metric on holomorphic bundles over K\"ahler manifolds and Mumford stability in ...

We construct a smooth Riemannian metric on any 3-manifold with the property that there are genus zero embedded minimal surfaces of arbitrarily high Morse index.

In arXiv:math/0605587, the first two authors have constructed a gauge-equivariant Morse stratification on the space of connections on a principal U(n)-bundle over a connected, closed, nonorientable surface. This space can be identified with the real locus of the space of connections on the pullback of this bundle over the orientable double cover of this nonorientable surface. In this context, the normal bundles to the Morse strata are real vector bundles. We show that these b...

In this paper we show how hypercomplex function theoretical objects can be used to construct explicitly self-dual SU(2)-Yang-Mills instanton solutions on certain classes of conformally flat 4-manifolds. We use a hypercomplex argument principle to establish a natural link between the fundamental solutions of $D \Delta f = 0$ and the second Chern class of the SU(2) principal bundles over these manifolds. The considered base manifolds of the bundles are not simply-connected, in ...

The geometric description of Yang-Mills theories and their configuration space M is reviewed. The presence of singularities in M is explained and some of their properties are described. The singularity structure is analyzed in detail for structure group SU(2).

Given a Morse 2-function $f: X^4 \to S^2$, we give minimal conditions on the fold curves and fibers so that $X^4$ and $f$ can be reconstructed from a certain combinatorial diagram attached to $S^2$. Additional remarks are made in other dimensions.

We study critical points of the Ginzburg-Landau (GL) functional and the abelian Yang-Mills-Higgs (YMH) functional on the sphere and the complex projective space, both equipped with the standard metrics. For the GL functional we prove that on $S^{n}$ with $n \geq 2$ and $\mathbb{CP}^{n}$ with $n \geq 1$, stable critical points must be constants. In addition, for GL critical points on $S^{n}$ for $n \geq 3$ we obtain a lower bound on the Morse index under suitable assumptions. ...

In this paper we use the Morse theory of the Yang-Mills-Higgs functional on the singular space of Higgs bundles on Riemann surfaces to compute the equivariant cohomology of the space of semistable U(2,1) and SU(2,1) Higgs bundles with fixed Toledo invariant. In the non-coprime case this gives new results about the topology of the U(2,1) and SU(2,1) character varieties of surface groups. The main results are a calculation of the equivariant Poincare polynomials, a Kirwan surje...

We extend an $L^2$ energy gap result due independently to Min-Oo and Parker (1982) for Yang-Mills connections on principal $G$-bundles, $P$, over closed, connected, four-dimensional, oriented, smooth manifolds, $X$, from the case of positive Riemannian metrics to the more general case of good Riemannian metrics, including metrics that are generic and where the topologies of $P$ and $X$ obey certain mild conditions and the compact Lie group, $G$, is $\mathrm{SU}(2)$ or $\mathr...

This article arose from a series of three lectures given at the Banach Center, Warsaw, during period of 24 March to 13 April, 2003. Morse functions are useful tool in revealing the geometric formation of its domain manifolds $M$. They define the handle decompositions of $M$ from which the additive homologies $H_{\ast}(M)$ may be constructed. In these lectures two further questions were emphasized. (1) How to find a Morse function on a given manifold? (2) From Morse function...