Categorification of Seidel's representation (Q273077)

The authors consider a monotone symplectic manifold \((M^{2n}, \omega)\), and denote by \(\mathrm{Ham}(M)\) the group of Hamiltonian diffeomorphisms and by \(QH(M)\) the quantum homology of \(M\). Their aim here is to relate two important constructions in symplectic topology: Lagrangian suspensions [\textit{V. I. Arnol'd}, Funkts. Anal. Prilozh. 14, No. 3, 1--13 (1980; Zbl 0448.57017); ibid. 14, No. 4, 8--17 (1980; Zbl 0472.55002)], and Seidel's quantum representation of the fundamental group of \(\mathrm{Ham}(M)\), \(S: \pi_1(\mathrm{Ham}(M))\rightarrow QH(M)\); see, e.g., [\textit{P. Seidel}, Geom. Funct. Anal. 7, No. 6, 1046--1095 (1997; Zbl 0928.53042); \textit{S. Hu} and \textit{F. Lalonde}, Trans. Am. Math. Soc. 362, No. 3, 1135--1168 (2010; Zbl 1189.53076)]. More exactly, they show that the functor constructed in [\textit{P. Biran} and the second author, Geom. Funct. Anal. 24, No. 6, 1731--1830 (2014; Zbl 1306.55003)], which maps the cobordism category \(\mathrm{Cob}^d_0\) to the derived Fukaya category \(\mathrm{DFuk}^d(M)\) is equivariant with respect to the actions of the fundamental groupoid \(\Pi(\mathrm{Ham}(M))\) on \(\mathrm{Cob}^d_0\), introduced in the above-mentioned work and, respectively, on a monotone variant of \(\mathrm{DFuk}^d(M)\). The paper consists of four sections. In the introduction, the authors present the main result, Theorem A, which refers to the commutativity of a diagram of action bifunctors, and Corollary B, which gives the commutativity of a diagram of categories and functors. The categories involved in Theorem A are \(\mathrm{Cob}^d_0\) and a category \(T^S\mathrm{DFuk}^d(M)\), associated to \(\mathrm{DFuk}^d(M)\) by a purely algebraic process [P. Biran and the second author, loc. cit.], and whose morphisms reflect the decomposition of the objects in \(\mathrm{DFuk}^d(M)\) by iterated exact triangles. The action of \(\Pi(\mathrm{Ham}(M))\) on \(\mathrm{Cob}^d_0\) is an extension of Lagrangian suspension, denoted here by \(\sum\), while the action of \(\Pi(\mathrm{Ham}(M))\) on \(T^S\mathrm{DFuk}^d(M)\) is a refinement of the Lagrangian Seidel representation to \(\mathrm{DFuk}^d(M)\) and then to \(T^S\mathrm{DFuk}^d(M)\), denoted by \(\widetilde{S}\). Another approach on the commutativity of the diagram in Theorem A, based on the equivalent definition of the action of a (strict) monoidal category \({M}\) on a category \({C}\) as a strict monoidal functor from \({M}\) to \(\mathrm{End}(C, C)\) yields the equivalence with the commutativity of the bottom square of the diagram in Corollary B. The categories and functors involved in Corollary B are described in Section 2, where the authors present also several constructions which are not explicitly given in the mathematical literature. They show that the notion of Lagrangian suspension extends to the action \(\sum\) on \(\mathrm{Cob}^d_0\). In Section 3, the authors prove Theorem A and Corollary B. First they use some algebraic manipulations on the properties of the functor \(\widetilde{F}\) from [P. Biran and the second author, loc. cit.], and then a new geometric approach from the first author [Quelques propriétés des sous-variétés lagrangiennes monotones: Rayon de Gromov et morphisme de Seidel, Ph.D. thesis, University of Montreal (2012)]. More exactly, if \(L\), \(L'\) are two Lagrangians and \(g_t\) is a path of Hamiltonian diffeomorphisms, then there exists a natural ``moving boundary'' morphism \(CF(g_0(L), L')\rightarrow CF(g_1(L), L'),\) which induces Seidel's Lagrangian morphism in homology. The Lagrangian suspension of \(L\) with respect to \(g\) is a cobordism from \(g_0(L)\) to \(g_1(L)\). A morphism associated to such a cobordism via the functor \(\widetilde{F}\) is \(CF(g_0(L), L') \rightarrow CF(g_1(L), L')\). The geometric novelty is that the above two morphisms are chain-homotopic. In the last section of the paper, the authors provide some examples of cobordisms with identical ends but which are not horizontally Hamiltonian isotopic, by using the commutativity of the diagram from Corollary B. In particular, they obtain examples of Lagrangians \(L\) such that the set \(\mathrm{Mor}_{\mathrm{Cob}^d_0} (L,L)\) is not trivial. Precisely, they consider a real Lagrangian in a toric symplectic manifold, providing a lower bound on the size of \(\mathrm{Mor}_{\mathrm{Cob}^d_0}(L,L)\). Finally, they present seven definitions of the relative Seidel morphism, which are homologically equivalent. The first of these definitions was given in [\textit{P. Seidel}, Fukaya categories and Picard-Lefschetz theory. Zürich: European Mathematical Society (EMS) (2008; Zbl 1159.53001)], and for the other equivalent definitions the authors quote various sources in the literature, including the first author's thesis, [loc. cit.].