Using simplicial volume to count multi-tangent trajectories of traversing vector fields (Q2634860)

In this article, in the setting of compact manifolds with boundary, the authors study the trajectories of a ``traversing vector field'' (i.e., non-vanishing vector field for which the trajectory is a closed segment or a singleton of the boundary). More precisely, they establish a lower bound for the number of such trajectories which intersect the boundary with the maximum reduced multiplicity. The main tool used is a method devised by Gromov, adapted by the authors to the framework of traversally generic vector fields (which are known to form an open and dense subset of the general traversing vector fields). The lower bound is expressed in terms of the simplicial volume and a constant which depends on the dimension of the manifold. Concerning the constant, several possible improvements are pointed out in the final part of the paper. The authors also present a setting where the result has a nice form. They consider manifolds obtained by removing an open set with certain nice properties from a closed, oriented hyperbolic manifold. In this case the simplicial volume can be replaced by the classical volume of the manifold.