Topology of complexity one quotients (Q827443)

The paper concerns Hamiltonian actions of an \((n-1)\)-dimensional torus on \(2n\)-dimensional compact connected symplectic manifolds and the goal is the study of the topology of the geometric quotient using technique from symplectic geometry. It is motivated by results in algebraic topology, see [\textit{V. M. Buchstaber} and \textit{S. Terzić}, Sb. Math. 210, No. 4, 508--549 (2019; Zbl 1427.57021); translation from Mat. Sb. 210, No. 4, 41--86 (2019); Mosc. Math. J. 19, No. 3, 397--463 (2019; Zbl 1469.57035)] and [\textit{A. A. Ayzenberg}, Proc. Steklov Inst. Math. 302, 16--32 (2018; Zbl 1431.57034); translation from Tr. Mat. Inst. Steklova 302, 23--40 (2018)]. Let \(T_{\mathrm{eff}}\) be the quotient of \(T\) by the kernel of the action. The complexity is \(\frac{1}{2}\dim M -\dim T_{\mathrm{eff}}\), if it is zero (the action is said to be toric), then it can be shown that \(M/T\) is homeomorphic to a disc. If the complexity is equal to one, then the image of the moment map \(\Delta\) can be decomposed as \(\Delta_{\mathrm{short}}\sqcup \Delta_{\mathrm{tall}}\) where \(\Delta_{\mathrm{short}}\) (resp. \(\Delta_{\mathrm{tall}}\)) is the set of points whose reduced space contains a single orbit (resp. whose reduced space is two-dimensional). The main theorem states that there exists a connected closed oriented surface \(\Sigma\) and a homeomorphism \(M/T \rightarrow (\Delta\times \Sigma)/\sim\), where \(\sim\) is the finest equivalence relation with \((x,\, y) \sim (x,\, y')\) if \(x \in\Delta_{\mathrm{short}}\). Moreover, (i) If \(\Delta_{\mathrm{short}}\) is nonempty, then \(\Sigma\) is a two-sphere; (ii) If \(\Delta_{\mathrm{short}}=\partial\Delta\) then \(M/T\) is homeomorphic to the \((n+1)\)-sphere. Finally, the paper contains two corollaries. The first gives a more precise description of \(M/T\) when further assumptions on fixed points are known, the second gives a classification when \(\dim M=4\). Finally, there is a table showing examples of geometric quotients.