Loop products and closed geodesics (Q1035855)

The closed geodesics on a compact Riemannian manifold \(M\) are the critical points of the length function on the free loop space \(\Lambda(M)\). The length function provides a filtration of the homology of \(\Lambda(M)\). The authors prove that the Chas-Sullivan product \[ H_i(\Lambda)\times H_j(\Lambda)@>*>> H_{i+j-n}(\Lambda) \] is compatible with this filtration. Furthermore, they also interprete Sullivan's coproduct \(\vee\) on \(C_*(\Lambda)\) as a product in cohomology \[ H^i(\Lambda,\Lambda_0)\times H^j(\Lambda,\Lambda_0)@>\circledast>> H^{i+j+n-1}(\Lambda, \Lambda_0), \] where \(\Lambda_0= M)\) is the constant loop. They show that \(\circledast\) is also compatible with the length filtration and provide a similar expression for the ring \(\text{Gr\,}H^*(\Lambda, \Lambda_0)\). Among other results they also determine the full ring structure \((H^*(\Lambda, \Lambda_0),\circledast)\) for spheres \(M= S^n\), where \(n\geq 3\). They obtain a significant contribution on loop products and closed geodesics.