Smoothing discrete Morse theory

DOI10.2422/2036-2145.201407_002zbMATH Open1354.57034arXiv1212.0885OpenAlexW2964113153MaRDI QIDQ3188643FDOQ3188643

Authors: Bruno Benedetti 

Publication date: 11 August 2016

Published in: ANNALI SCUOLA NORMALE SUPERIORE - CLASSE DI SCIENZE (Search for Journal in Brave)

Abstract: After surveying classical notions of PL topology of the Seventies, we clarify the relation between Morse theory and its discretization by Forman. We show that PL handles theory and discrete Morse theory are equivalent, in the sense that every discrete Morse vector on some PL triangulation is also a PL handle vector, and conversely, every PL handle vector is also a discrete Morse vector on some PL triangulation. It follows that in dimension up to 7, every discrete Morse vector on some PL triangulation is also a smooth Morse vector; the vice versa is true in all dimensions. This revises and improves a result by Gallais. Some further consequences of our work are: (1) For $de4$, every simply connected smooth d-manifold admits locally constructible triangulations. In contrast, the Mazur 4-manifold has no locally constructible triangulation. (This solves a question by Zivaljevic and completes work by the author and Ziegler.) (2) The Heegaard genus of 3-manifolds can be characterized as the smallest integer g for which some triangulation of the manifold has discrete Morse vector (1,g,g,1). (This allows for heuristics to bound the Heegaard genus of any 3-manifold.) (3) Some non-PL 5-spheres admit discrete Morse functions with only 2 critical faces. (This result, joint with Adiprasito, completes the Sphere Theorem by Forman.)

Full work available at URL: https://arxiv.org/abs/1212.0885

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Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Polyhedral manifolds (52B70) Surgery and handlebodies (57R65) Triangulating manifolds (57Q15) Triangulating (57R05) Neighborhoods of submanifolds (57N40) Regular neighborhoods in PL-topology (57Q40) Smoothing in differential topology (57R10) Comparison of PL-structures: classification, Hauptvermutung (57Q25)

Cited In (20)

• Discrete-to-continuous extensions: Lovász extension and Morse theory
• Collapsibility of CAT(0) spaces
• Discrete Morse theory for the barycentric subdivision
• Perfect discrete Morse functions on triangulated 3-manifolds
• The connectedness homomorphism between discrete Morse complexes
• Discrete stratified Morse theory. Algorithms and a user's guide
• Decomposing perfect discrete Morse functions on connected sum of 3-manifolds
• Some geometric and topological data-driven methods in robot motion path planning
• Smoothing resolution for the Alexander-Conway polynomial
• Extremal examples of collapsible complexes and random discrete Morse theory
• Discrete Stratified Morse Theory: Algorithms and A User's Guide
• Discrete Morse theory for manifolds with boundary
• A Cheeger-type exponential bound for the number of triangulated manifolds
• PL Morse theory in low dimensions
• Creating semiflows on simplicial complexes from combinatorial vector fields
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• Shellable tilings on relative simplicial complexes and their \(h\)-vectors
• Discrete $d$-dimensional moduli of smoothness
• The main theorem of discrete Morse theory for Morse matchings with finitely many rays
• Mogami manifolds, nuclei, and 3D simplicial gravity

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