Links and polar flows on 4-manifolds (Q1199911)

A flow \(\varphi\) on a (smooth) manifold is said to be a polar Morse flow if (1) the non-wandering set consists of a finite number of singularities, all of which are hyperbolic; (2) if \(p_ 1\) and \(p_ 2\) are singularities of \(\varphi\) then the stable manifold \(W^ s(p_ 1)\) is transverse to the unstable manifold \(W^ u(p_ 2)\); (3) \(\varphi\) has exactly one source and one sink. A Morse flow of index 2 on a closed 4-manifold is called an even polar flow. The main results of this paper provide a complete classification of all the even polar flows on closed simply connected 4-manifolds with the help of isotopy classes of framed links.