Orbit spaces of gradient vector fields

DOI10.1017/ETDS.2012.123MaRDI QIDQ2874003zbMATH OpenOpenAlexFDO

Authors Robert E. Gompf, Jack S. Calcut

Publication date 28 January 2014

Published in Ergodic Theory and Dynamical Systems (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/1105.5286

zbMATH Keywords

Morse vector fieldorbit spacequotient spacevector field

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Dynamics induced by flows and semiflows (37C10) Quotient spaces, decompositions in general topology (54B15)

Abstract: We study orbit spaces of generalized gradient vector fields for Morse functions. Typically, these orbit spaces are non-Hausdorff. Nevertheless, they are quite structured topologically and are amenable to study. We show that these orbit spaces are locally contractible. We also show that the quotient map associated to each such orbit space is a weak homotopy equivalence and has the path lifting property.

Review text

The authors study the orbit spaces of generalized gradient vector fields for Morse functions. The study of these vector fields was started by Pajitnov. The spaces of generalized gradient vector fields for Morse functions are non-Hausdorff. The authors show that these spaces are locally contractible. They also show that the quotient map associated to each such an orbit space is a weak homotopy equivalence and has the path lifting property. The work in this paper is motivated by the desire to show that a class of dynamically important flows (namely, the gradient flows for Morse functions) have semilocally simply-connected orbit spaces. Another motivation is an observation of Arnold saying that there exists an uncountable collection of smooth vector fields on \(\mathbb{R}^5\) which are pairwise topologically equivalent but not smoothly equivalent. A third motivation is a remark made independently by Sullivan and by Verjovsky saying that manifolds of dimension 3 and 4 might be studied by looking at their Morse-gradient orbit spaces, which have dimensions 2 and 3 respectively.

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Cites work

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Cited in

(9)

• Complex vector fields having orbits with bounded geometry
• Connected components of the space of proper gradient vector fields
• Orbits of maximal vector spaces
• Quotient manifolds of flows
• On the Space of Trajectories of a Generic Vector Field
• scientific article; zbMATH DE number 4142816 (Why is no real title available?)
• Periodic Orbits for Generalized Gradient Flows
• Traversally generic \(\&\) versal vector flows: semi-algebraic models of tangency to the boundary
• On fundamental groups of quotient spaces

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