Connected components of spaces of Morse functions with fixed critical points (Q355300)

The work focuses on the study of the space \(F\) of all Morse functions on a closed oriented surface \(M\) with prescribed critical points and Morse indices. It is shown that in the case when there is at least one saddle point, \(F\) has infinitely many path connected components. The proof uses the notion of the winding number of a curve with respect to a Morse function, a special case of the winding number of a curve with respect to a vector field. The invariance properties of the winding number and the Poincaré-Hopf Theorem are used in order to show that the Dehn twist \(t\) about the boundary of a disk around suitably chosen critical points maps a given \(f \in F\) to an \(f'=f \circ t\) which lies in a different connected component of the space \(F\). As a consequence, one obtains a surjection from the set of connected components to a free abelian group. Subsequently, analogous arguments are used in order to study the relationships between the groups of (i) the diffeomorphisms \(h: M \rightarrow M\), for which \(f \circ h\) lies in the same connected component of \(F\) as \(f\) (ii) the diffeomorphisms which map some function \(f'\) from the connected component of \(f\) to itself and (iii) the diffeomorphisms which can be written as a composition of Dehn twists about level sets of functions in the connected component of \(f\). Estimates for the quotients of these groups are found. Finally, a finite polyhedral complex is constructed, which is homotopy equivalent to the space \(F\). The construction is based on the study of the combinatorics of the tuples consisting of the values of the function at the saddle points. The presentation of the results is concise and the article is a sound and original contribution.