Representation spaces of Seifert fibered homology spheres (Q5925260)

In their paper in Proc. Lond. Math. Soc., III. Ser. 61, No.1, 109-137 (1990; Zbl 0705.57009), \textit{R. Fintushel} and \textit{R. Stern} develop a series of ideas leading to the calculation of the Floer or instanton homology of an arbitrary Seifert fibered homology 3-sphere M. The last essential step in this program (which they could do only in some special cases) is the construction of a Morse function on the representation space \(\hat R=Hom(\pi_ 1(M)\), SU(2))/conjugation, having only even index critical points, and the determination of their indices. The construction of such a Morse function is the main result of the present paper. Then, using the formulas in the above mentioned paper, the Floer homology groups of some Seifert fibered homology 3-spheres with 4 and 5 exceptional fibers are computed (Fintushel and Stern did it for 3 and, in a special case, 4 exceptional fibers where the existence of such a Morse function was clear). Also, the 4-dimensional components of \(\hat R\) are determined.