Localization and specialization for Hamiltonian torus actions (Q2510084)

If a compact torus \(T\) acts on a compact symplectic manifold in an Hamiltonian fashion, then the inclusion of the fixed point set \(M^T\) into \(M\) induces an injection \(H^*_T(M,{\mathbb Q}) \to H^*_T(M^T,{\mathbb Q})\) on the level of equivariant cohomology (the main part of the paper at hand deals with rational coefficients, but in the final section a generalization to integer coefficients is explained). One can thus try to understand the \(H^*(BT,{\mathbb Q})\)-algebra \(H^*_T(M,{\mathbb Q})\) by determining the image of this map. One instance in which this has been achieved successfully is the class of GKM actions, in which one poses rather strong assumptions on the strata of the \(T\)-action, namely finiteness of the fixed point set, as well as that the union of the at most one-dimensional \(T\)-orbits is a finite union of two-spheres. Toric actions always satisfy this condition, but in general a restriction of a toric action to a subtorus does not. In this paper, the author considers Hamiltonian circle actions with finitely many fixed points, hence if \(M\) is not two-dimensional, then the GKM condition cannot be satisfied. The main result of the paper then applies the Atiyah-Bott-Berline-Vergne localization theorem to derive a description of the image of the restriction map \(H^*_{S^1}(M,{\mathbb Q})\to H^*_{S^1}(M^{S^1},{\mathbb Q})\) in terms of a (nonunique) fixed module basis of the equivariant cohomology satisfying a certain assumption on the restrictions to the fixed points. As in the GKM case, the condition for an element to be in the image consists of certain divisibility relations involving the equivariant Euler classes of the fixed points, i.e., the products of the weights of the isotropy representations. The existence of this special basis (whose elements are called generating classes) was proven by Kirwan, respectively Goldin and Tolman. In the paper at hand it is explained how one can find such a basis explicitly in various situations, for example in the case of a restriction of a toric action to a generic subcircle.