Asymptotic concordance invariants for ergodic vector fields (Q620536)

A smooth vector field on a domain of \(\mathbb{R}^3\) defines a flow, and an associated foliation with singularities. The closed leaves of these foliations can be studied from the knot theory point of view. If there are no closed leaves, one can still study asymptotic knotting of flow lines. Work in this has been done by various people, including Arnol'd and Khesin, Gambaudo and Ghys, and the author of the paper under review, in a previous work. Gambaudo and Ghys studied an ``asymptotic signature invariant'', and they related it to an ``asymptotic linking number''. Baader studied an ``asymptotic Rasmussen invariant''. The signature and the Rasmussen invariants are examples of ``concordance invariants'', that is, link invariants that are constant on equivalence classes of concordant links. In the paper under review, the author studies the asymptotics of a family of link invariants of orbits of a smooth volume-preserving ergodic vector field on a compact domain in \(\mathbb{R}^3\) that includes many concordance invariants. These invariants are called linear saddle invariants. They generate an infinite-dimensional vector space of link invariants. In contrast, the vector space of asymptotic linear saddle invariants is 1-dimensional, and it is generated by the asymptotic signature. The author also determines the asymptotic slice genus, and he relates it to the asymptotic signature.