An invitation to Morse theory (Q5894253)

Differential Topology is one of the most important and active fields in Mathematics with a substantial and large variety of applications in several disciplines including differential geometry, dynamical systems, mechanics, theoretical physics, etc. The present book provides a wonderful presentation of concepts and ideas as well as problems with their solutions in Morse Theory, an important and challenging part of Differential Topology. The textbook is organized into six chapters. The first five present the theoretical results including suggestive examples of Morse functions and their topology, applications of Morse theory, Morse-Smale flows and Whitney stratifications, and basics of complex Morse theory. Chapter 6 contains the statement of \(51\) problems and at the end their solutions. Compared to the first edition of the book [Zbl 1131.57002], the following additions have been made: Chapter 1: The author has added Corollary 1.26: Suppose that \(M\) is a smooth manifold and \(U \subset C^{\infty}(M)\) is a finite dimensional vector space satisfying the ampleness condition (\(\forall p\in M, \forall \xi \in T_p^*(M)\), there is \(u\in U\) such that \(du(p)=\xi\)). Then almost any function \(u\in U\) is Morse. Also, Section 1.3, devoted to Morse functions on knots, is new. Chapter 2: Theorem 2.37 is added: Any smooth compact connected \(3\)-manifold admits a Heegard decomposition. Chapter 3: Section 3.1, about the moduli space of planar polygons, investigating in detail the robotics problem presented in Sections 1.5, 1.10, and 2.11 is new as well as Section 3.7 on the Duistermaat-Heckman localization formula [\textit{J. J. Duistermaat} and \textit{G. J. Heckman}, ``On the variation in the cohomology of the symplectic form of the reduced phase space'', Invent. Math. 69, 259--268 (1982; Zbl 0503.58015)]. Chapter 4 is completely new and it opens the door to an active area of research, namely Floer homology. The main results are based on the author's recent paper [``Tame Flows'', Mem. Am. Math. Soc. 980, i--v, 130 p. (2010; Zbl 1217.37001)] and seem to be new in the literature on the subject. The key results of this chapter are contained in Theorems 4.32 and 4.33 and state that a Morse flow on a compact manifold satisfies the Smale transversality condition if and only if the stratification given by the unstable manifolds satisfies the Whitney regularity conditions. These results provide a rigorous foundation to \textit{R. Thom}'s result [``Sur une partition en cellules associee à une fonction sur une variété'', C. R. Acad. Sci., Paris 228, 973--975 (1949; Zbl 0034.20802)] and to a result of \textit{F. Laudenbach} [in the appendix of \textit{J.-M. Bismut} and \textit{W. Zhang}, ``An extension of a theorem by Cheeger and Müller'', Astérisque 205 (1992; Zbl 0781.58039)]. The main goal of Section 4.4 is to investigate the spaces of tunnelings between two critical points of a Morse-Smale flow. The author uses a recent idea in the book of \textit{P. Kronheimer} and \textit{T. Mrowka} [``Monopoles and Three-manifolds'', Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (2007; Zbl 1158.57002)] to show that these spaces admit natural compactifications as manifolds with corners. The last section is devoted to the presentation of the Morse-Floer complex from the dynamics point of view. The book ends with an useful and relevant bibliography containing 85 references. It also contains an index of symbols and a subject index. I would like to conclude this review with the statement of appreciation by Michael Farber in his review of the first edition of this book: ``The book will be useful for mathematicians of various levels, including graduate students and researchers''.