Closed orbits of gradient flows and logarithms of non-abelian Witt vectors (Q5935570)

Zeta functions are a classical means to summarize information on the periodic points of the powers of a selfmap, and ``computation'' is done in terms of homology invariants. Flows have fixed points and closed orbits as distinguished characteristics, and these should be collected into a similar invariant which would be expected to be related to homotopy invariants. The author proposes a non-abelian zeta function for the flow of a Kupka-Smale vector field \(v\) on a closed connected manifold \(M\), where \(v\) is an \(f\)-gradient for a Morse map \(f: M\to S^1\) epimorphic on integer homology. This zeta function counts the classes of closed orbits with certain weights depending on index (of the appropriate Poincaré map) and multiplicity, within the fundamental group of \(M\). For an open and \(C^0\)-dense subset of vector fields, the zeta function is computed from the torsion of a chain homotopy equivalence between the Novikov complex which mirrors the critical points of \(f\), and a complex derived from the simplicial chain complex of the universal covering of \(M\).