On the Symplectic Eigenvalues of Positive Definite Matrices

A simple proof of Williamson’s theorem is given. This theorem states that a real symmetric positive definite matrix A of even order can be brought to diagonal form Λ by a symplectic congruence transformation. The diagonal entries of Λ are called symplectic eigenvalues of A. The problem of calculating these values is also discussed.     

On the Darboux theorem for weak symplectic manifolds

A new tool to study reducibility of a weak symplectic form to a constant one is introduced and used to prove a version of the Darboux theorem more general than previous ones. More precisely, at each point of the considered manifold a Banach space is associated to the symplectic form (dual of the phase space with respect to the symplectic form), and it is shown that the Darboux theorem holds if such a space is locally constant. The following application is given. Consider a weak symplectic manifold on which the Darboux theorem is assumed to hold (e.g. a symplectic vector space). It is proved that the Darboux theorem holds also for any finite codimension symplectic submanifolds of , and for symplectic manifolds obtained from by the Marsden-Weinstein reduction procedure.

     

Relative symplectic caps, 4-genus and fibered knots

We prove relative versions of the symplectic capping theorem and sufficiency of Giroux’s criterion for Stein fillability and use these to study the 4-genus of knots. More precisely, suppose we have a symplectic 4-manifold X with convex boundary and a symplectic surface Σ in X such that ?Σ is a transverse knot in ?X. In this paper, we prove that there is a closed symplectic 4-manifold Y with a closed symplectic surface S such that (X,Σ) embeds into (Y,S) symplectically. As a consequence we obtain a relative version of the symplectic Thom conjecture. We also prove a relative version of the sufficiency part of Giroux’s criterion for Stein fillability, namely, we show that a fibered knot whose mondoromy is a product of positive Dehn twists bounds a symplectic surface in a Stein filling. We use this to study 4-genus of fibered knots in \(\mathbb {S}^{3} \). Further, we give a criterion for quasipositive fibered knots to be strongly quasipositive.     

Lagrange Intersections in a Symplectic Space

The two-dimensional torus |z₁|=|z₂|=1 in the symplectic space ² and the image of it under a linear symplectomorphism have at least eight common points (counted according to their multiplicities). We also prove a many-dimensional version of this theorem of symplectic linear algebra.     

Semisimple Symplectic Symmetric Spaces

A symplectic symmetric space is a connected affine symmetric manifold M endowed with a symplectic structure which is invariant under the geodesic symmetries. When the transvection group G⁰ of such a symmetric space M is semisimple, its action on (M,) is strongly Hamiltonian; a classical theorem due to Kostant implies that the moment map associated to this action realises a G⁰-equivariant symplectic covering of a coadjoint orbit O in the dual of the Lie algebra of G⁰. We show that this orbit itself admits a structure of symplectic symmetric space whose transvection algebra is . The main result of this paper is the classification of symmetric orbits for any semisimple Lie group. The classification is given in terms of root systems of transvection algebras and therefore provides, in a symplectic framework, a theorem analogous to the Borel–de Siebenthal theorem for Riemannian symmetric spaces. When its dimension is greater than 2, such a symmetric orbit is not regular and, in general, neither Hermitian nor pseudo-Hermitian.     

Harmonic cohomology of symplectic manifolds

Mathieu (Math. Helv. 70 (1995) 1) introduced a canonic filtration in the de Rham cohomology of a symplectic manifold and proved, that the middle filtration space is the space of harmonic cohomology classes. We give an interpretation of the other filtration spaces, prove a Künneth theorem for harmonic cohomology, prove Poincaré duality for harmonic cohomology and show how surjectivity of certain Lefschetz type mappings is related to properties of the filtration. For a closed symplectic manifold M we also introduce symplectic invariants , and show if M is of dimension 2n with n even.     

Frankel's theorem in the symplectic category

We prove that if an -dimensional torus acts symplectically on a -dimensional symplectic manifold, then the action has a fixed point if and only if the action is Hamiltonian. One may regard it as a symplectic version of Frankel's theorem which says that a Kähler circle action has a fixed point if and only if it is Hamiltonian. The case of is the well-known theorem by McDuff.

     

Theta functions on <Emphasis Type="Italic">T</Emphasis><Superscript>2</Superscript>-bundles over <Emphasis Type="Italic">T</Emphasis><Superscript>2</Superscript> with the zero Euler class

We construct an analog of the classical theta function on an abelian variety for the closed 4-dimensional symplectic manifolds that are T ²-bundles over T ² with the zero Euler class. We use our theta functions for a canonical symplectic embedding of these manifolds into complex projective spaces (an analog of the Lefschetz theorem).     

Rigidity around Poisson submanifolds

We prove a rigidity theorem in Poisson geometry around compact Poisson submanifolds, using the Nash–Moser fast convergence method. In the case of one-point submanifolds (fixed points), this implies a stronger version of Conn’s linearization theorem [2], also proving that Conn’s theorem is a manifestation of a rigidity phenomenon; similarly, in the case of arbitrary symplectic leaves, it gives a stronger version of the local normal form theorem [7]. We can also use the rigidity theorem to compute the Poisson moduli space of the sphere in the dual of a compact semisimple Lie algebra [17].     

When is a symplectic quotient an orbifold?

Let K be a compact Lie group of positive dimension. We show that for most unitary K-modules the corresponding symplectic quotient is not regularly symplectomorphic to a linear symplectic orbifold (the quotient of a unitary module of a finite group). When K is connected, we show that even a symplectomorphism to a linear symplectic orbifold does not exist. Our results yield conditions that preclude the symplectic quotient of a Hamiltonian K  -manifold from being locally isomorphic to an orbifold. As an application, we determine which unitary _SU2${\mathrm{SU}}_2$-modules yield symplectic quotients that are Z⁺${\mathbb{Z}}^{+}$-graded regularly symplectomorphic to a linear symplectic orbifold. We similarly determine which unitary circle representations yield symplectic quotients that admit a regular diffeomorphism to a linear symplectic orbifold.     

Semifree symplectic circle actions on -orbifolds

A theorem of Tolman and Weitsman states that all symplectic semifree circle actions with isolated fixed points on compact symplectic manifolds must be Hamiltonian and have the same equivariant cohomology and Chern classes of equipped with the standard diagonal circle action. In this paper, we show that the situation is much different when we consider compact symplectic orbifolds. Focusing on -orbifolds with isolated cone singularities, we show that such actions, besides being Hamiltonian, can now be obtained from either or a weighted projective space, or a quotient of one of these spaces by a finite cyclic group, by a sequence of special weighted blow-ups at fixed points. In particular, they can have any number of fixed points.

     

The Bott obstruction to the existence of nice polarizations

In this note, we prove and discuss the following theorem: if the symplectic or almost symplectic manifoldM admits a nice polarizationF with dim , we must have Chern ^q M=0 and Pont ^q M=0, forq>2n–k, and, in particular, the Euler class ofM vanishes.     

Symplectic manifolds with contact type boundaries

Summary An example of a 4-dimensional symplectic manifold with disconnected boundary of contact type is constructed. A collection of other results about symplectic manifolds with contact-type boundaries are derived using the theory ofJ-holomorphic spheres. In particular, the following theorem of Eliashberg-Floer-McDuff is proved: if a neighbourhood of the boundary of (V, ) is symplectomorphic to a neighbourhood ofS ^2n–1 in standard Euclidean space, and if vanishes on all 2-spheres inV, thenV is diffeomorphic to the ballB ²ⁿ.Oblatum 19-III-1990Partially supported by NSF grant no: DMS 8803056     

Gaiotto’s Lagrangian Subvarieties via Derived Symplectic Geometry

Let Bun_G be the moduli space of G-bundles on a smooth complex projective curve. Motivated by a study of boundary conditions in mirror symmetry, Gaiotto (2016) associated to any symplectic representation of G a Lagrangian subvariety of T^?Bun_G. We give a simple interpretation of (a generalization of) Gaiotto’s construction in terms of derived symplectic geometry. This allows to consider a more general setting where symplectic G-representations are replaced by arbitrary symplectic manifolds equipped with a Hamiltonian G-action and with an action of the multiplicative group that rescales the symplectic form with positive weight.     

On primitive ideals

We extend two well-known results on primitive ideals in enveloping algebras of semisimple Lie algebras, the Irreducibility theorem for associated varieties and Duflo theorem on primitive ideals, to much wider classes of algebras. Our general version of the Irreducibility Theorem says that if A is a positively filtered associative algebra such that gr A is a commutative Poisson algebra with finitely many symplectic leaves, then the associated variety of any primitive ideal in A is the closure of a single connected symplectic leaf. Our general version of the Duflo theorem says that if A is an algebra with a triangular structure, see § 2, then any primitive ideal in A is the annihilator of a simple highest weight module. Applications to symplectic reflection algebras and Cherednik algebras are discussed.     

Symplectically degenerate maxima via generating functions

We provide a simple proof of a theorem due to Nancy Hingston, asserting that symplectically degenerate maxima of any Hamiltonian diffeomorphism $\phi $ of the standard symplectic $2d$ -torus are non-isolated contractible periodic points or their action is a non-isolated point of the average-action spectrum of $\phi $ . Our argument is based on generating functions.     

Diffusion and drift in volume-preserving maps

A nearly-integrable dynamical system has a natural formulation in terms of actions, y (nearly constant), and angles, x (nearly rigidly rotating with frequency Ω(y)).We study angleaction maps that are close to symplectic and have a twist, the derivative of the frequency map, DΩ(y), that is positive-definite. When the map is symplectic, Nekhoroshev’s theorem implies that the actions are confined for exponentially long times: the drift is exponentially small and numerically appears to be diffusive. We show that when the symplectic condition is relaxed, but the map is still volume-preserving, the actions can have a strong drift along resonance channels. Averaging theory is used to compute the drift for the case of rank-r resonances. A comparison with computations for a generalized Froeschl´e map in four-dimensions shows that this theory gives accurate results for the rank-one case.     

Positive divisors in symplectic geometry

In this paper, we first prove a vanishing theorem of relative Gromov-Witten invariant of ?¹-bundle. Based on this vanishing theorem and degeneration formula, we obtain a comparison theorem between absolute and relative Gromov-Witten invariant under some positive condition of the symplectic divisor.     

On Riemann-Roch Formulas for Multiplicities

A theorem of Guillemin and Sternberg about geometric quantization of Hamiltonian actions of compact Lie groups on compact Kähler manifolds says that the dimension of the -invariant subspace is equal to the Riemann-Roch number of the symplectic quotient. Combined with the shifting-trick, this gives explicit formulas for the multiplicities of the various irreducible components. One of the assumptions of the theorem is that the reduction is regular, so that the reduced space is a smooth symplectic manifold. In this paper, we prove a generalization of this result to the case where the reduced space may have orbifold singularities. The result extends to non-Kählerian settings, if one defines the representation by the equivariant index of the -Dirac operator associated to the quantizing line bundle.