On the Rabinowitz Floer homology of twisted cotangent bundles (Q644995)

This paper extends results of \textit{A. Abbondandolo} and \textit{M. Schwarz} [``Estimates and computations in Rabinowitz-Floer homology'', J. Topol. Anal. 1, No. 4, 307--405 (2009; Zbl 1190.53082)] to hypersurfaces \(\Sigma_k := H^{-1}(k)\) where \(k\) is bigger than the Mañé critical value (as opposed to the strict Mañé critical value found in the aforementioned paper). Let \((M,g)\) denote a closed connected orientable Riemannian manifold with cotangent bundle \(\pi:T^\ast M \rightarrow M\). Let \(\omega_0\) denote the canonical symplectic form on \(T^\ast M\), and let \(\sigma\) be a weakly exact \(2\)-form on \(M\), i.e. the pullback \(\widetilde{\sigma}\) of \(\sigma\) to the universal cover \(\widetilde{M}\) is exact. Assume that \(\sigma\) admits a bounded primitive and define \[ \omega := \omega_0 + \pi^\ast\sigma. \] The symplectic manifold \((T^\ast M,\omega)\) is called the twisted cotangent bundle. Let \(H_g:T^\ast M \rightarrow {\mathbb R}\) denote the standard kinetic energy Hamiltonian and let \(H := H_g + \pi^\ast U\), where \(U\in C^\infty(M,{\mathbb R})\) is a given potential. Define the Mañé critical value associated to the metric \(g\), the weakly exact \(2\)-form \(\sigma\) and the potential \(U\) by \[ c = c(g,\sigma,U) := \inf_\theta \sup_{q \in \widetilde{M}} \widetilde{H}(q,\theta_q) \] where the infimum is taken over all \(1\)-forms \(\theta\) on \(\widetilde{M}\) with \(d \theta = \widetilde{\sigma}\), and \(\widetilde{H}\) is the lift of \(H\) to \(T^\ast \widetilde{M}\). The Mañé critical value is finite if and only if \(\widetilde{\sigma}\) admits a bounded primitive. If \(\sigma\) is exact, then we can define the strict Mañé critical value by \[ c_0 = c_0(g,\sigma,U) := \inf_\theta \sup_{q \in M} H(q,\theta_q) < \infty. \] If \(\sigma\) is not exact, then define \(c_0 = \infty\). In general, there may be cases in which \([c,c_0]\) is a non-trivial interval. For \(k \in {\mathbb R}\), let \(\Sigma_k := H^{-1}(k) \subseteq T^\ast M\). The hypersurfaces \(\Sigma_k\) can be investigated using Rabinowitz Floer homology. The aforementioned paper by Abbondandolo and Schwarz computed the Rabinowitz Floer homology of \(\Sigma_k\) when \(k > c_0\), and the paper under review extends their results to cases where \(k > c\). In both cases, the computation is based on establishing the existence of a short exact sequence of chain complexes that relates the Rabinowitz Floer chain complex with the Morse (co)chain complex of a functional on \(\Lambda M \times {\mathbb R}^+\) defined using the Fenchel transform of the Hamiltonian \(H\), where \(\Lambda M\) denotes the free loop space of maps of Sobolev class \(W^{1,2}\). When \(k > c\) the Morse complex of the functional on \(\Lambda M \times {\mathbb R}^+\) is defined using Frauenfelder's Morse-Bott homology with cascades and the infinite dimensional Morse theory of Abbondandolo and Majer. The main result of the paper is Theorem 1.1. Let \((M,g)\) be a closed connected orientable Riemannian manifold and \(\sigma \in \Omega^2(M)\) be a closed weakly exact \(2\)-form. Let \(U \in C^\infty(M,{\mathbb R})\) and put \(H := H_g + \pi^\ast U\) and \(\Sigma_k := H^{-1}(k)\). Then if \(k > c(g,\sigma,U)\) the Rabinowitz Floer homology \(RFH_\ast(\Sigma_k,T^\ast M)\) is defined and non-zero. In particular, \(\Sigma_k\) is not displaceable. A second main result is Theorem 1.6. Let \((M,g)\) be a closed connected orientable Riemannian manifold and \(\sigma \in \Omega^2(M)\) be a closed weakly exact \(2\)-form. Let \(U \in C^\infty(M,{\mathbb R})\) and put \(H := H_g + \pi^\ast U\). Choose \( k > c(g,\sigma,U)\) and put \(\Sigma_k := H^{-1}(k)\). Then for any \(\psi \in\) Ham\(_c(T^\ast M, \omega)\) there exists a leaf-wise intersection point for \(\psi\) in \(\Sigma_k\). Moreover, if \(\dim H_\ast(\Lambda M;{\mathbb Z}_2) = \infty\) and \(g\) is chosen generically, then for a generic \(\psi \in \)Ham\(_c(T^\ast M,\omega)\) there exists infinitely many leaf-wise intersection points for \(\psi\) in \(\Sigma_k\).