The relation of the Morse index of closed geodesics with the Maslov-type index of symplectic paths (Q2581146)

Let \(c : [0,1] \rightarrow M\) be a smoothly closed geodesic in a Riemannian manifold \(M\) of dimension \(n\). The symmetric bilinear index form \(I_c\) determined by \(c\) defines the Morse index (ind(\(c\)),null(\(c\))) \(\in \mathbb{Z}\times\mathbb{Z}\), where ind(\(c\)) denotes the maximum dimension of a subspace on which \(I_{c}\) is negative definite and null(\(c\)) denotes the nullity of \(I_c\). One obtains a symplectic path \(\gamma\): \([0,1] \rightarrow \text{Sp}(2n-2)\) that starts at the identity from the solution to a second order differential equation defined by the Poincaré map of \(c\), the curvature tensor of \(M\) along \(c\) and a choice of orthonormal basis for the orthogonal complement to \(c'(0)\) in \(T_{c(0)}M\). For a unit complex number \(\omega\) and a symplectic path \(\gamma : [0,1] \rightarrow Sp(2k)\) with \(\gamma(0) = \text{Id}\), Y. Long has extended the theory of Conley and Zehnder to define an \(\omega\)-index \((i_{\omega}(\gamma), \nu_{\omega}(\gamma)) \in \mathbb{Z}\times\{0,1,\dots 2k\}\). The first main result of this paper is the following Theorem. Let \(c : [0,1] \rightarrow M\) be a smoothly closed geodesic in a Riemannian manifold \(M\) of dimension \(n\), and let \(\gamma : [0,1] \rightarrow Sp(2n-2)\) with \(\gamma(0) = Id\) be the corresponding symplectic path. If \(c\) is orientation preserving, then (ind(\(c\)),null(\(c\))) \(= (i_{1}(\gamma),\nu_{1}(\gamma))\). If \(c\) is orientation reversing and \(n\) is even, then (ind(\(c\)),null(\(c\))) \(= (i_{-1}(\gamma),\nu_{-1}(\gamma))\). If \(c\) is orientation reversing and \(n\) is odd, then (ind(\(c\)),null(\(c\))) \(= (i_{-1}(\overline{\gamma)},\nu_{-1}(\overline{\gamma})- 1)\), where \(\overline{\gamma}\) is a symplectic path in Sp\((2n)\) defined by a second order differential equation similar to the one described above. The second main result of the article is a formula for ind(\(c\)) (mod 2) that generalizes a result of B. Wilking.