Decomposing sutured monopole and instanton Floer homologies (Q6103428)

The authors prove several results involving sutured monopole Floer homology and sutured instanton Floer homology for balanced sutured manifolds. They give an algorithm for computing Floer homologies of a family of sutured handlebodies, they build polytopes for sutured monopole and instanton Floer homologies from a canonical decomposition, and they prove a Thurston-norm detection result. They also generalize the construction of the minus versions of monopole and instanton knot Floer homology to links. A \textbf{balanced sutured manifold} is a pair \((M,\gamma)\), where \(M\) is a compact oriented 3-manifold and \(\gamma \subset \partial M\) is a closed orientable 1-submanifold meeting certain requirements involving an annular neighborhood \(A(\gamma) = [-1,1] \times \gamma\) (Definition 2.1). The balanced sutured manifold \((M,\gamma)\) is called a \textbf{product sutured manifold} when \(M = [-1,1] \times R\), \(A(\gamma) = [-1,1] \times \partial R\), \(R_+(\gamma) = \{1\} \times R\), and \(R_-(\gamma) = \{-1\} \times R\), where \(R\) is a compact oriented surface with no closed components. (Definition 2.2). The first main result in the paper about the sutured monopole Floer homology \(\underline{SHM}(M,\gamma)\) and the sutured instanton Floer homology \(\underline{SHI}(M,\gamma)\) generalizes a result from [\textit{P. Kronheimer} and \textit{T. Mrowka}, J. Differ. Geom. 84, No. 2, 301--364 (2010; Zbl 1208.57008)]. \textbf{Theorem 1.2} Suppose \((M,\gamma)\) is a taut balanced sutured manifold \(H_2(M) = 0\), and \[ \text{rk}(\underline{SHM}(M,\gamma)) < 2^{k+1} \text{ or } \text{rk}(\underline{SHI}(M,\gamma)) < 2^{k+1}. \] Then \[ d(M,\gamma) \leq 2k. \] Here \(d(M\gamma)\) is the depth of a balanced sutured manifold, i.e. the minimal number of taut sutured manifold decompositions making \((M,\gamma)\) into a product sutured manifold. As a corollary, the authors prove the following. \textbf{Corollary 1.5} Suppose \((M,\gamma)\) is a balanced sutured manifold equipped with a vertical tangle \(T\). Suppose further that \(H_2(M \backslash T) = 0\) and \(SHI(M,\gamma,T) \cong \mathbb{C}\). Then \((M,\gamma,T)\) is diffeomorphic to a product sutured manifold equipped with a product tangle, i.e. \[ (M,\gamma,T) \cong ([-1,1] \times F,\{0\} \times \partial F, [-1,1] \times \{p_1,\ldots ,p_n\}). \] Here, \(F\) is a compact oriented surface-with-boundary, and \(p_1,\ldots , p_n\) are distinct points on \(F\). The authors address the question of to what extent the essential information of sutured monopole and instanton Floer homologies is contained in the original balanced sutured manifold, rather than its closure, with the following result. \textbf{Theorem 1.11} Suppose \((M,\gamma)\) is a balanced sutured manifold. Suppose further that \(Y\) is a closure of \((M,\gamma)\), and \(\mathfrak{s}_1\) and \(\mathfrak{s}_2\) are two supporting \(spin^c\) structures on \(Y\). Then there is a 1-cycle \(x\) in \(M\) so that \[ c_1(\mathfrak{s}_1) - c_1(\mathfrak{s}_2) = P.D.[x] \in H^2(Y). \] Similar results hold in the instanton settings. This result leads to the following result on grading shifting, which is used to compute the sutured monopole and instanton Floer homology of families of sutures on a general handlebody. \textbf{Theorem 1.12} Suppose \((M,\gamma)\) is a balanced sutured manifold and \(\alpha \in H_2(M,\partial M)\) is a non-trivial homology class. Pick two surfaces \(S_1\) and \(S_2\) so that \[ [S_1,\partial S_1] = [S_2, \partial S_2] = \alpha \in H_2(M,\partial M), \] and they are both admissible (see Definition 2.26) in \((M,\gamma)\). Then, there exist constants \(l_M\), \(l_I \in \mathbb{Z}\), so that, for any \(j \in \mathbb{Z}\), we have: \[ \underline{SHM}(-M,-\gamma,S_1,j) = \underline{SHM}(-M,-\gamma,S_2,j-l_M) \] and \[ \underline{SHM}(-M,-\gamma,S_1,j) = \underline{SHM}(-M,-\gamma,S_2,j-l_I). \] Note the values \(l_I\) and \(l_M\) depend on the surfaces \(S_1\) and \(S_2\). The authors address the question of whether there is a \(spin^c\)-type decomposition for sutured monopole or instanton Floer homology with the following result. \textbf{Proposition 1.14} Suppose \((M,\gamma)\) is a balanced sutured manifold and \(a \in \underline{SHM}\) is a homogeneous element. Then there is a canonical decomposition \[ \underline{SHM}(M,\gamma) = \bigoplus_{\rho \in H^2(M,\partial M;\mathbb{R})} \underline{SHM}_a(M,\gamma,\rho). \] A similar statement holds in the instanton settings. This result allows the authors to define polytopes as the convex hulls of sets of \(\rho\) so that \(\underline{SHM}_a(M,\gamma,\rho) \neq 0\) or \(\underline{SHI}_a(M,\gamma\rho) \neq 0\), which leads to the following corollary. \textbf{Corollary 1.16} Suppose \((M,\gamma)\) is a taut balanced sutured manifold with \(H_2(M) = 0\). Suppose further that \((M,\gamma)\) is reduced, horizontally prime, and free of essential product disks. Then the polytopes must both have maximal possible dimensions. In particular, we conclude that \[ \text{rk}_{\mathcal{R}}(\underline{SHM}(M,\gamma)) \geq b^1(M)+ 1 \text{ and } \text{dim}_{\mathbb{C}}(\underline{SHI}(M,\gamma)) \geq b^1(M)+ 1 \] The authors also prove a result (Theorem 1.18) that relates the monopole and instanton Floer homologies to the Thurston norm on a balanced sutured manifold meeting certain conditions. The result applies, in particular, when the boundary of the balanced sutured manifold consists of tori.