The Maslov cycle as a Legendre singularity and projection of a wavefront set

A Maslov cycle is a singular variety in the lagrangian grassmannian Λ(V) of a symplectic vector space V consisting of all lagrangian subspaces having nonzero intersection with a fixed one. Givental has shown that a Maslov cycle is a Legendre singularity, i.e. the projection of a smooth conic lagrangian submanifold S in the cotangent bundle of Λ(V). We show here that S is the wavefront set of a Fourier integral distributionwhich is “evaluation at 0 of the quantizations”.     

Well-posed infinite horizon variational problems on a compact manifold

We give an effective sufficient condition for a variational problem with infinite horizon on a compact Riemannian manifold M to admit a smooth optimal synthesis, i.e., a smooth dynamical system on M whose positive semi-trajectories are solutions to the problem. To realize the synthesis, we construct an invariant Lagrangian submanifold (well-projected to M) of the flow of extremals in the cotangent bundle T*M. The construction uses the curvature of the flow in the cotangent bundle and some ideas of hyperbolic dynamics.     

Hamiltonian reduction of free particle motion on the group SL(2, ℝ)

We analyze the structure of the reduced phase space that arises in the Hamiltonian reduction of the phase space of free particle motion over the groupSL(2, ℝ). The reduction considered is based on introducing constraints that are analogous to those used in the reduction of the Wess-Zumino-Novikov-Witten model to Toda systems. It is shown that the reduced phase space is diffeomorphic either to a union of two two-dimensional planes or to a cylinder S¹×ℝ. We construct canonical coordinates for both cases and show that in the first case, the reduced phase space is symplectomorphic to the union of two cotangent bundles T*(ℝ) endowed with a canonical symplectic structure, while in the second case, it is symplectomorphic to the cotangent bundle T* (S¹), which is also endowed with a canonical symplectic structure. Translated from Teoreticheskaya i Matematicheskaya Fizika, Vol. 110, No. 1, pp. 149–161, January, 1997.     

Differential geometry of curves in Lagrange Grassmannians with given Young diagram

Curves in Lagrange Grassmannians appear naturally in the intrinsic study of geometric structures on manifolds. By a smooth geometric structure on a manifold we mean any submanifold of its tangent bundle, transversal to the fibers. One can consider the time-optimal problem naturally associated with a geometric structure. The Pontryagin extremals of this optimal problem are integral curves of certain Hamiltonian system in the cotangent bundle. The dynamics of the fibers of the cotangent bundle w.r.t. this system along an extremal is described by certain curve in a Lagrange Grassmannian, called Jacobi curve of the extremal. Any symplectic invariant of the Jacobi curves produces the invariant of the original geometric structure. The basic characteristic of a curve in a Lagrange Grassmannian is its Young diagram. The number of boxes in its kth column is equal to the rank of the kth derivative of the curve (which is an appropriately defined linear mapping) at a generic point. We will describe the construction of the complete system of symplectic invariants for parameterized curves in a Lagrange Grassmannian with given Young diagram. It allows to develop in a unified way local differential geometry of very wide classes of geometric structures on manifolds, including both classical geometric structures such as Riemannian and Finslerian structures and less classical ones such as sub-Riemannian and sub-Finslerian structures, defined on nonholonomic distributions.     

Lagrangian isotopy of tori in $${S^2\times S^2}$$ and $${{\mathbb{C}}P^2}$$CP2

We show that, up to Lagrangian isotopy, there is a unique Lagrangian torus inside each of the following uniruled symplectic four-manifolds: the symplectic vector space \({{\mathbb{R}}^4}\), the projective plane \({{\mathbb{C}}P^2}\), and the monotone \({S^2 \times S^2}\). The result is proven by studying pseudoholomorphic foliations while performing the splitting construction from symplectic field theory along the Lagrangian torus. A number of other related results are also shown. Notably, the nearby Lagrangian conjecture is established for \({T^*{\mathbb{T}}^2}\), i.e. it is shown that every closed exact Lagrangian submanifold in this cotangent bundle is Hamiltonian isotopic to the zero-section.     

Nonlocal Hamiltonian operators of hydrodynamic type with flat metrics, integrable hierarchies, and the associativity equations

We solve the problem of describing all nonlocal Hamiltonian operators of hydrodynamic type with flat metrics. This problem is equivalent to describing all flat submanifolds with flat normal bundle in a pseudo-Euclidean space. We prove that every such Hamiltonian operator (or the corresponding submanifold) specifies a pencil of compatible Poisson brackets, generates bihamiltonian integrable hierarchies of hydrodynamic type, and also defines a family of integrals in involution. We prove that there is a natural special class of such Hamiltonian operators (submanifolds) exactly described by the associativity equations of two-dimensional topological quantum field theory (the Witten-Dijkgraaf-Verlinde-Verlinde and Dubrovin equations). We show that each N-dimensional Frobenius manifold can locally be represented by a special flat N-dimensional submanifold with flat normal bundle in a 2N-dimensional pseudo-Euclidean space. This submanifold is uniquely determined up to motions.     

Floer Homology and the Heat Flow

We study the heat flow in the loop space of a closed Riemannian manifold M as an adiabatic limit of the Floer equations in the cotangent bundle. Our main application is a proof that the Floer homology of the cotangent bundle, for the Hamiltonian function kinetic plus potential energy, is naturally isomorphic to the homology of the loop space. J.W. received partial financial support from TH-Projekt 00321. Received: December 2004 Revision: September 2005 Accepted: September 2005     

The Role of the Legendre Transform in the Study of the Floer Complex of Cotangent Bundles

Consider a classical Hamiltonian H on the cotangent bundle T*M of a closed orientable manifold M, and let L:TM → R be its Legendre‐dual Lagrangian. In a previous paper we constructed an isomorphism Φ from the Morse complex of the Lagrangian action functional that is associated to L to the Floer complex that is determined by H. In this paper we give an explicit construction of a homotopy inverse Ψ of Φ. Contrary to other previously defined maps going in the same direction, Ψ is an isomorphism at the chain level and preserves the action filtration. Its definition is based on counting Floer trajectories on the negative half‐cylinder that on the boundary satisfy half of the Hamilton equations. Albeit not of Lagrangian type, such a boundary condition defines Fredholm operators with good compactness properties. We also present a heuristic argument which, independently of any Fredholm and compactness analysis, explains why the spaces of maps that are used in the definition of Φ and Ψ are the natural ones. The Legendre transform plays a crucial role both in our rigorous and in our heuristic arguments. We treat with some detail the delicate issue of orientations and show that the homology of the Floer complex is isomorphic to the singular homology of the loop space of M with a system of local coefficients, which is defined by the pullback of the second Stiefel‐Whitney class of TM on 2‐tori in M.© 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

Exact Lagrangian submanifolds in simply-connected cotangent bundles

We consider exact Lagrangian submanifolds in cotangent bundles. Under certain additional restrictions (triviality of the fundamental group of the cotangent bundle, and of the Maslov class and second Stiefel–Whitney class of the Lagrangian submanifold) we prove such submanifolds are Floer-cohomologically indistinguishable from the zero-section. This implies strong restrictions on their topology. An essentially equivalent result was recently proved independently by Nadler [16], using a different approach.     

Invariant measures of Hamiltonian systems with prescribed asymptotic Maslov index

We study the properties of the asymptotic Maslov index of invariant measures for time-periodic Hamiltonian systems on the cotangent bundle of a compact manifold M. We show that if M has finite fundamental group and the Hamiltonian satisfies some general growth assumptions on the momenta, then the asymptotic Maslov indices of periodic orbits are dense in the half line [0,+∞). Furthermore, if the Hamiltonian is the Fenchel dual of an electromagnetic Lagrangian, then every non-negative number r is the limit of the asymptotic Maslov indices of a sequence of periodic orbits which converges narrowly to an invariant measure with asymptotic Maslov index r. We discuss the existence of minimal ergodic invariant measures with prescribed asymptotic Maslov index by the analogue of Mather’s theory of the beta function, the asymptotic Maslov index playing the role of the rotation vector. Dedicated to Vladimir Igorevich Arnold     

The Growth Rate of Symplectic Homology and Affine Varieties

We will show that the cotangent bundle of a manifold whose free loopspace homology grows exponentially is not symplectomorphic to any smooth affine variety. We will also show that the unit cotangent bundle of such a manifold is not Stein fillable by a Stein domain whose completion is symplectomorphic to a smooth affine variety. For instance, these results hold for end connect sums of simply connected manifolds whose cohomology with coefficients in some field has at least two generators. We use an invariant called the growth rate of symplectic homology to prove this result.     

The homology of path spaces and Floer homology with conormal boundary conditions

We define the Floer complex for Hamiltonian orbits on the cotangent bundle of a compact manifold which satisfy non-local conormal boundary conditions. We prove that the homology of this chain complex is isomorphic to the singular homology of the natural path space associated to the boundary conditions. Dedicated to Felix E. Browder     

Geodesics on the space of Lagrangian submanifolds in cotangent bundles

We prove that the space of Hamiltonian deformations of zero section in a cotangent bundle of a compact manifold is locally flat in the Hofer metric and we describe its geodesics.

     

Construction of trigonometric Todar-matrices via a hamiltonian reduction of the cotangent bundle over loop groups

It is shown how the classical trigonometric τ-matrices of the Toda model can be obtained by a Hamiltonian reduction of the cotangent bundle over loop groups. Translated from Teoreticheskaya i Matematicheskaya Fizika, Vol. 113, No. 1, pp. 3–12, October, 1997.     

On the Floer homology of cotangent bundles

This paper concerns Floer homology for periodic orbits and for a Lagrangian intersection problem on the cotangent bundle T* M of a compact orientable manifold M. The first result is a new L^∞ estimate for the solutions of the Floer equation, which allows us to deal with a larger—and more natural—class of Hamiltonians. The second and main result is a new construction of the isomorphism between the Floer homology and the singular homology of the free loop space of M in the periodic case, or of the based loop space of M in the Lagrangian intersection problem. The idea for the construction of such an isomorphism is to consider a Hamiltonian that is the Legendre transform of a Lagrangian on T M and to construct an isomorphism between the Floer complex and the Morse complex of the classical Lagrangian action functional on the space of W^1,2 free or based loops on M. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

An example of convex Hamiltonian diffeomorphism where asymptotic distance from identity is strictly greater than the minimal action

We construct a convex Hamiltonian diffeomorphism on the unit ball of cotangent bundle of Tn (n?2), where the asymptotic distance from identity is strictly greater than the minimal action.     

Functors and Computations in Floer Homology with Applications, I

This paper is concerned with Floer cohomology of manifolds with contact type boundary. In this case, there is no conjecture on this ring, as opposed to the compact case, where it is isomorphic to the usual cohomology (with the quantum product). We construct two mappings in Floer cohomology and prove some functorial properties of these two mappings. The first one is a map from the Floer cohomology of M to the relative cohomology of M modulo its boundary. The other is associated to a codimension zero embedding, and may be considered as a cohomological transfer. These maps are used to define some properties of symplectic manifolds with contact type boundary. These are algebraic versions of the Weinstein conjecture, asserting existence of closed characteristics on . This is proved for many cases, Euclidean space and subcritical Stein manifolds, vector bundles, products, cotangent bundles. It is also proved that the above property implies some restrictions on Lagrangian embeddings, and also yields in certain cases, existence results for holomorphic curves bounded by the Lagrange submanifold. The last section is devoted to applications of this existence result, to real forms of Stein manifolds and obstructions to polynomial convexity in Stein manifolds. Many of our applications rely on the computation of the Floer cohomology of a cotangent bundle, that is the subject of Part II. Submitted: December 1997, revised version: February 1999.     

On the Geometry of the 7-Sphere

A sphere of dimension 4n+3 admits three Sasakian structures and it is natural to ask if a submanifold can be an integral submanifold for more than one of the contact structures. In the 7-sphere it is possible to have curves which are Legendre curves for all three contact structures and there are 2 and 3-dimensional submanifolds which are integral submanifolds of two of the contact structures. One of the results here is that if a 3-dimensional submanifold is an integral submanifold of one of the Sasakian structures and invariant with respect to another, it is an integral submanifold of the remaining structure and is a principal circle bundle over a holmophic Legendre curve in complex projective 3-space.