Hamiltonian monodromy and Morse theory (Q2174653)

The paper considers two-degree of freedom integrable Hamiltonian systems. Hamiltonian monodromy is an obstruction to the existence of global action coordinates. For the systems with a global circle action, the paper proposes a new method to compute the Hamiltonian monodromy, based on Takens' index theorem. To apply the theorem, one considers a proper Morse function on the phase space of the Hamiltonian system (i.e., such that the preimages of compact sets are compact), given by the Hamiltonian or another first integral of the system and invariant under the circle action. Using the global circle action, each level set of the Morse function can be described as a circle bundle, and Takens' index theorem describes the Chern numbers of such bundles in the level sets near a non-degenerate critical value of the Morse function. The authors show how Takens' theorem can be used to compute the Hamiltonian monodromy for two-degree of freedom integrable systems, and provide an alternative proof of the geometric monodromy theorem. The paper also discusses the connections of the proposed method to other results and phenomena in the study of integrable Hamiltonian systems.