FMSP Lectures

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2013/06/06

16:00-17:30   Room #056 (Graduate School of Math. Sci. Bldg.)
Andrei Pajitnov (Univ. de Nantes)
Real-valued and circle-valued Morse theory:
an introduction
(ENGLISH)
[ Abstract ]
Classical Morse theory relates the number of critical points of a Morse
function f on a manifold M to the topology of M. The main technical
ingredient of this theory is a chain complex generated by the critical points
of the function. In 1981 S.P. Novikov generalized this theory to the case of
circle-valued Morse functions. In this talk we describe the construction of
both chain complexes, based on the idea of E. Witten (1982), which allows, in
particular, to compute the boundary operators in the Morse complex from
the count of flow lines of the gradient of f. We discuss geometric applications
of these constructions.