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Continuation Map
In differential topology, given a family of Morse-Smale functions on a smooth manifold ''X'' parameterized by a closed interval ''I'', one can construct a Morse-Smale vector field on ''X'' × ''I'' whose critical points occur only on the boundary. The Morse differential defines a chain map from the Morse complexes at the boundaries of the family, the continuation map. This can be shown to descend to an isomorphism on Morse homology, proving its invariance of Morse homology of a smooth manifold. Continuation maps were defined by Andreas Floer to prove the invariance of Floer homology in infinite dimensional analogues of the situation described above; in the case of finite-dimensional Morse theory, invariance may be proved by proving that Morse homology is isomorphic to singular homology, which is known to be invariant. However, Floer homology is not always isomorphic to a familiar invariant, so continuation maps yield an a priori proof of invariance. In finite-dimension ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Differential Topology
In mathematics, differential topology is the field dealing with the topological properties and smooth properties of smooth manifolds. In this sense differential topology is distinct from the closely related field of differential geometry, which concerns the ''geometric'' properties of smooth manifolds, including notions of size, distance, and rigid shape. By comparison differential topology is concerned with coarser properties, such as the number of holes in a manifold, its homotopy type, or the structure of its diffeomorphism group. Because many of these coarser properties may be captured algebraically, differential topology has strong links to algebraic topology. The central goal of the field of differential topology is the classification of all smooth manifolds up to diffeomorphism. Since dimension is an invariant of smooth manifolds up to diffeomorphism type, this classification is often studied by classifying the ( connected) manifolds in each dimension separately: * In ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Isomorphism
In mathematics, an isomorphism is a structure-preserving mapping between two structures of the same type that can be reversed by an inverse mapping. Two mathematical structures are isomorphic if an isomorphism exists between them. The word isomorphism is derived from the Ancient Greek: ἴσος ''isos'' "equal", and μορφή ''morphe'' "form" or "shape". The interest in isomorphisms lies in the fact that two isomorphic objects have the same properties (excluding further information such as additional structure or names of objects). Thus isomorphic structures cannot be distinguished from the point of view of structure only, and may be identified. In mathematical jargon, one says that two objects are . An automorphism is an isomorphism from a structure to itself. An isomorphism between two structures is a canonical isomorphism (a canonical map that is an isomorphism) if there is only one isomorphism between the two structures (as it is the case for solutions of a unive ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Legendrian Knots
In mathematics, a Legendrian knot often refers to a smooth embedding of the circle into which is tangent to the standard contact structure on It is the lowest-dimensional case of a Legendrian submanifold, which is an embedding of a k-dimensional manifold into a (2k+1)-dimensional contact manifold that is always tangent to the contact hyperplane. Two Legendrian knots are equivalent if they are isotopic through a family of Legendrian knots. There can be inequivalent Legendrian knots that are isotopic as topological knots. Many inequivalent Legendrian knots can be distinguished by considering their Thurston-Bennequin invariants and rotation number, which are together known as the "classical invariants" of Legendrian knots. More sophisticated invariants have been constructed, including one constructed combinatorially by Chekanov and using holomorphic discs by Eliashberg. This Chekanov-Eliashberg invariant yields an invariant for loops of Legendrian knots by considering the monodr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Contact Structure
In mathematics, contact geometry is the study of a geometric structure on smooth manifolds given by a hyperplane distribution in the tangent bundle satisfying a condition called 'complete non-integrability'. Equivalently, such a distribution may be given (at least locally) as the kernel of a differential one-form, and the non-integrability condition translates into a maximal non-degeneracy condition on the form. These conditions are opposite to two equivalent conditions for ' complete integrability' of a hyperplane distribution, i.e. that it be tangent to a codimension one foliation on the manifold, whose equivalence is the content of the Frobenius theorem. Contact geometry is in many ways an odd-dimensional counterpart of symplectic geometry, a structure on certain even-dimensional manifolds. Both contact and symplectic geometry are motivated by the mathematical formalism of classical mechanics, where one can consider either the even-dimensional phase space of a mechanical sy ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chain Homotopy
In homological algebra in mathematics, the homotopy category ''K(A)'' of chain complexes in an additive category ''A'' is a framework for working with chain homotopies and homotopy equivalences. It lies intermediate between the category of chain complexes ''Kom(A)'' of ''A'' and the derived category ''D(A)'' of ''A'' when ''A'' is abelian; unlike the former it is a triangulated category, and unlike the latter its formation does not require that ''A'' is abelian. Philosophically, while ''D(A)'' turns into isomorphisms any maps of complexes that are quasi-isomorphisms in ''Kom(A)'', ''K(A)'' does so only for those that are quasi-isomorphisms for a "good reason", namely actually having an inverse up to homotopy equivalence. Thus, ''K(A)'' is more understandable than ''D(A)''. Definitions Let ''A'' be an additive category. The homotopy category ''K(A)'' is based on the following definition: if we have complexes ''A'', ''B'' and maps ''f'', ''g'' from ''A'' to ''B'', a chain hom ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Singular Homology
In algebraic topology, singular homology refers to the study of a certain set of algebraic invariants of a topological space ''X'', the so-called homology groups H_n(X). Intuitively, singular homology counts, for each dimension ''n'', the ''n''-dimensional holes of a space. Singular homology is a particular example of a homology theory, which has now grown to be a rather broad collection of theories. Of the various theories, it is perhaps one of the simpler ones to understand, being built on fairly concrete constructions (see also the related theory simplicial homology). In brief, singular homology is constructed by taking maps of the standard ''n''-simplex to a topological space, and composing them into formal sums, called singular chains. The boundary operation – mapping each ''n''-dimensional simplex to its (''n''−1)-dimensional boundary – induces the singular chain complex. The singular homology is then the homology of the chain complex. The resu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Floer Homology
In mathematics, Floer homology is a tool for studying symplectic geometry and low-dimensional topology. Floer homology is a novel invariant that arises as an infinite-dimensional analogue of finite-dimensional Morse homology. Andreas Floer introduced the first version of Floer homology, now called Lagrangian Floer homology, in his proof of the Arnold conjecture in symplectic geometry. Floer also developed a closely related theory for Lagrangian submanifolds of a symplectic manifold. A third construction, also due to Floer, associates homology groups to closed three-dimensional manifolds using the Yang–Mills functional. These constructions and their descendants play a fundamental role in current investigations into the topology of symplectic and contact manifolds as well as (smooth) three- and four-dimensional manifolds. Floer homology is typically defined by associating to the object of interest an infinite-dimensional manifold and a real valued function on it. In the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Andreas Floer
Andreas Floer (; 23 August 1956 – 15 May 1991) was a German mathematician who made seminal contributions to symplectic topology, and mathematical physics, in particular the invention of Floer homology. Floer's first pivotal contribution was a solution of a special case of Arnold's conjecture on fixed points of a symplectomorphism. Because of his work on Arnold's conjecture and his development of instanton homology, he achieved wide recognition and was invited as a plenary speaker for the International Congress of Mathematicians held in Kyoto in August 1990. He received a Sloan Fellowship in 1989. Life He was an undergraduate student at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum and received a Diplom in mathematics in 1982. He then went to the University of California, Berkeley, living at Barrington Hall of the Berkeley Student Cooperative, and undertook Ph.D. work on monopoles on 3-manifolds, under the supervision of Clifford Taubes; but he did not complete it when interrupted by his obli ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chain Complex
In mathematics, a chain complex is an algebraic structure that consists of a sequence of abelian groups (or modules) and a sequence of homomorphisms between consecutive groups such that the image of each homomorphism is included in the kernel of the next. Associated to a chain complex is its homology, which describes how the images are included in the kernels. A cochain complex is similar to a chain complex, except that its homomorphisms are in the opposite direction. The homology of a cochain complex is called its cohomology. In algebraic topology, the singular chain complex of a topological space X is constructed using continuous maps from a simplex to X, and the homomorphisms of the chain complex capture how these maps restrict to the boundary of the simplex. The homology of this chain complex is called the singular homology of X, and is a commonly used invariant of a topological space. Chain complexes are studied in homological algebra, but are used in several areas of ma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Morse Homology
In mathematics, specifically in the field of differential topology, Morse homology is a homology theory defined for any smooth manifold. It is constructed using the smooth structure and an auxiliary metric on the manifold, but turns out to be topologically invariant, and is in fact isomorphic to singular homology. Morse homology also serves as a model for the various infinite-dimensional generalizations known as Floer homology theories. Formal definition Given any (compact) smooth manifold, let ''f'' be a Morse function and ''g'' a Riemannian metric on the manifold. (These are auxiliary; in the end, the Morse homology depends on neither.) The pair (f, g) gives us a gradient vector field. We say that (f, g) is Morse–Smale if the stable and unstable manifolds associated to all of the critical points of ''f'' intersect each other transversely. For any such pair (f, g), it can be shown that the difference in index between any two critical points is equal to the dimension of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Boundary (topology)
In topology and mathematics in general, the boundary of a subset of a topological space is the set of points in the closure of not belonging to the interior of . An element of the boundary of is called a boundary point of . The term boundary operation refers to finding or taking the boundary of a set. Notations used for boundary of a set include \operatorname(S), \operatorname(S), and \partial S. Some authors (for example Willard, in ''General Topology'') use the term frontier instead of boundary in an attempt to avoid confusion with a different definition used in algebraic topology and the theory of manifolds. Despite widespread acceptance of the meaning of the terms boundary and frontier, they have sometimes been used to refer to other sets. For example, ''Metric Spaces'' by E. T. Copson uses the term boundary to refer to Hausdorff's border, which is defined as the intersection of a set with its boundary. Hausdorff also introduced the term residue, which is defi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Critical Point (mathematics)
Critical point is a wide term used in many branches of mathematics. When dealing with functions of a real variable, a critical point is a point in the domain of the function where the function is either not differentiable or the derivative is equal to zero. When dealing with complex variables, a critical point is, similarly, a point in the function's domain where it is either not holomorphic or the derivative is equal to zero. Likewise, for a function of several real variables, a critical point is a value in its domain where the gradient is undefined or is equal to zero. The value of the function at a critical point is a critical value. This sort of definition extends to differentiable maps between and a critical point being, in this case, a point where the rank of the Jacobian matrix is not maximal. It extends further to differentiable maps between differentiable manifolds, as the points where the rank of the Jacobian matrix decreases. In this case, critical points ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
