Floer Complex Research Articles

Involutive Heegaard Floer homology

Using the conjugation symmetry on Heegaard Floer complexes, we define a three-manifold invariant called involutive Heegaard Floer homology, which is meant to correspond to $\mathbb{Z}_4$-equivariant Seiberg-Witten Floer homology. Further, we obtain two new invariants of homology cobordism, $\underline{d}$ and $\bar{d}$, and two invariants of smooth knot concordance, $\underline{V}_0$ and $\overline{V}_0$. We also develop a formula for the involutive Heegaard Floer homology of large integral surgeries on knots. We give explicit calculations in the case of L-space knots and thin knots. In particular, we show that $\underline{V}_0$ detects the non-sliceness of the figure-eight knot. Other applications include constraints on which large surgeries on alternating knots can be homology cobordant to other large surgeries on alternating knots.

A survey on Heegaard Floer homology and concordance

In this survey paper, we discuss several different knot concordance invariants coming from the Heegaard Floer homology package of Ozsváth and Szabó. Along the way, we prove that if two knots are concordant, then their knot Floer complexes satisfy a certain type of stable equivalence.

The reduced knot Floer complex

We define a “reduced” version of the knot Floer complex CFK−(K), and show that it behaves well under connected sums and retains enough information to compute Heegaard Floer d-invariants of manifolds arising as surgeries on the knot K. As an application to connected sums, we prove that if a knot in the three-sphere admits an L-space surgery, it must be a prime knot. As an application to the computation of d-invariants, we show that the Alexander polynomial is a concordance invariant within the class of L-space knots, and show the four-genus bound given by the d-invariant of +1-surgery is independent of the genus bounds given by the Ozsváth–Szabó τ invariant, the knot signature and the Rasmussen s invariant.

A note on the concordance invariants epsilon and upsilon

Ozsvath-Stipsicz-Szabo recently defined a one-parameter family, upsilon of K at t, of concordance invariants associated to the knot Floer complex. We compare their invariant to the {-1, 0, 1}-valued concordance invariant epsilon, which is also associated to the knot Floer complex. In particular, we give an example of a knot K with upsilon uniformly equal to zero but epsilon non-zero.

The knot Floer complex and the smooth concordance group

We define a new smooth concordance homomorphism based on the knot Floer complex and an associated concordance invariant \varepsilon . As an application, we show that an infinite family of topologically slice knots are independent in the smooth concordance group.

The Role of the Legendre Transform in the Study of the Floer Complex of Cotangent Bundles

AbstractConsider a classical Hamiltonian H on the cotangent bundle T*M of a closed orientable manifold M, and let L:TM → R be its Legendre‐dual Lagrangian. In a previous paper we constructed an isomorphism Φ from the Morse complex of the Lagrangian action functional that is associated to L to the Floer complex that is determined by H. In this paper we give an explicit construction of a homotopy inverse Ψ of Φ. Contrary to other previously defined maps going in the same direction, Ψ is an isomorphism at the chain level and preserves the action filtration. Its definition is based on counting Floer trajectories on the negative half‐cylinder that on the boundary satisfy half of the Hamilton equations. Albeit not of Lagrangian type, such a boundary condition defines Fredholm operators with good compactness properties. We also present a heuristic argument which, independently of any Fredholm and compactness analysis, explains why the spaces of maps that are used in the definition of Φ and Ψ are the natural ones. The Legendre transform plays a crucial role both in our rigorous and in our heuristic arguments. We treat with some detail the delicate issue of orientations and show that the homology of the Floer complex is isomorphic to the singular homology of the loop space of M with a system of local coefficients, which is defined by the pullback of the second Stiefel‐Whitney class of TM on 2‐tori in M.© 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Knot Floer filtration classes of topologically slice knots

The knot Floer complex and the concordance invariant ε can be used to define a filtration on the smooth concordance group. We exhibit an ordered subset of this filtration that is isomorphic to ℕ × ℕ and consists of topologically slice knots.

Corrigendum: On the Floer Homology of Cotangent Bundles

We fix an orientation issue that appears in our previous paper about the isomorphism between Floer homology of cotangent bundles and loop space homology. When the second Stiefel‐Whitney class of the underlying manifold does not vanish on 2‐tori, this isomorphism requires the use of a twisted version of the Floer complex. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Hofer geometry and cotangent fibers

For a class of Riemannian manifolds that include products of arbitrary compact manifolds with manifolds of nonpositive sectional curvature on the one hand, or with certain positivecurvature examples such as spheres of dimension at least 3 and compact semisimple Lie groups on the other, we show that the Hamiltonian diffeomorphism group of the cotangent bundle contains as subgroups infinite-dimensional normed vector spaces that are bi-Lipschitz embedded with respect to Hofer’s metric; moreover these subgroups can be taken to consist of diffeomorphisms supported in an arbitrary neighborhood of the zero section. In fact, the orbit of a fiber of the cotangent bundle with respect to any of these subgroups is quasi-isometrically embedded with respect to the induced Hofer metric on the orbit of the fiber under the whole group. The diffeomorphisms in these subgroups are obtained from reparametrizations of the geodesic flow. Our proofs involve a study of the Hamiltonian-perturbed Floer complex of a pair of cotangent fibers (or, more generally, of a conormal bundle together with a cotangent fiber). Although the homology of this complex vanishes, an analysis of its boundary depth yields the lower bounds on the Lagrangian Hofer metric required for our main results.

ON THE KNOT FLOER FILTRATION OF THE CONCORDANCE GROUP

The knot Floer complex together with the associated concordance invariant ε can be used to define a filtration on the smooth concordance group. We show that the indexing set of this filtration contains ℕ × ℤ as an ordered subset.

On the Concordance Genus of Topologically Slice Knots

The concordance genus of a knot K is the minimum Seifert genus of all knots smoothly concordant to K. Concordance genus is bounded below by the 4-ball genus and above by the Seifert genus. We give a lower bound for the concordance genus of K coming from the knot Floer complex of K. As an application, we prove that there are topologically slice knots with 4-ball genus equal to 1 and arbitrarily large concordance genus.

Bordered Heegaard Floer homology and the tau-invariant of cable knots

We define a concordance invariant, epsilon(K), associated to the knot Floer complex of K, and give a formula for the Ozsv\'ath-Szab\'o concordance invariant tau of K_{p,q}, the (p,q)-cable of a knot K, in terms of p, q, tau(K), and epsilon(K). We also describe the behavior of epsilon under cabling, allowing one to compute tau of iterated cables. Various properties and applications of epsilon are also discussed.

On the algebra of cornered Floer homology

Bordered Floer homology associates to a parametrized oriented surface a certain differential graded algebra. We study the properties of this algebra under splittings of the surface. To the circle we associate a differential graded 2-algebra, the nilCoxeter sequential 2-algebra, and to a surface with connected boundary an algebra-module over this 2-algebra, such that a natural gluing property is satisfied. Moreover, with a view toward the structure of a potential Floer homology theory of 3-manifolds with codimension-two corners, we present a decomposition theorem for the Floer complex of a planar grid diagram, with respect to vertical and horizontal slicing.

Hofer’s metrics and boundary depth

We show that if (M ,ω) is a closed symplectic manifold which admits a nontrivial Hamiltonian vector field all of whose contractible closed orbits are constant, then Hofer’s metric on the group of Hamiltonian diffeomorphisms of (M ,ω) has infinite diameter, and indeed admits infinite-dimensional quasi-isometrically embedded normed vector spaces. A similar conclusion applies to Hofer’s metric on various spaces of Lagrangian submanifolds, including those Hamiltonian-isotopic to the diagonal in M × M when M satisfies the above dynamical condition. To prove this, we use the properties of a Floer-theoretic quantity called the boundary depth, which measures the nontriviality of the boundary operator on the Floer complex in a way that encodes robust symplectic-topological information.

Deformed Hamiltonian Floer theory, capacity estimates and Calabi quasimorphisms

We develop a family of deformations of the differential and of the pair-of-pants product on the Hamiltonian Floer complex of a symplectic manifold (M,\omega) which upon passing to homology yields ring isomorphisms with the big quantum homology of M. By studying the properties of the resulting deformed version of the Oh-Schwarz spectral invariants, we obtain a Floer-theoretic interpretation of a result of Lu which bounds the Hofer-Zehnder capacity of M when M has a nonzero Gromov-Witten invariant with two point constraints, and we produce a new algebraic criterion for (M,\omega) to admit a Calabi quasimorphism and a symplectic quasi-state. This latter criterion is found to hold whenever M has generically semisimple quantum homology in the sense considered by Dubrovin and Manin (this includes all compact toric M), and also whenever M is a point blowup of an arbitrary closed symplectic manifold.

Floer Cohomology of Torus Fibers and Real Lagrangians in Fano Toric Manifolds

In this article, we consider the Floer cohomology (with $\Z_2$ coefficients) between torus fibers and the real Lagrangian in Fano toric manifolds. We first investigate the conditions under which the Floer cohomology is defined, and then develop a combinatorial description of the Floer complex based on the polytope of the toric manifold. We show that if the Floer cohomology is defined, and the Floer cohomology of the torus fiber is non-zero, then the Floer cohomology of the pair is non-zero. We use this result to develop some applications to non-displaceability and the minimum number of intersection points under Hamiltonian isotopy.

An open string analogue of Viterbo functoriality

Liouville domains are a special type of symplectic manifolds with boundary (they have an everywhere defined Liouville flow, pointing outwards along the boundary). Symplectic cohomology for Liouville domains was introduced by Cieliebak-Floer-Hofer-Wysocki and Vitero. The latter constructed a restriction (or transfer) map associated to an embedding of one Liouville domain into another. In this preprint, we look at exact Lagrangian submanifolds with Legendrian boundary inside a Liouville domain. The analogue of symplectic cohomology for such submanifolds is called "wrapped Floer cohomology". We construct an A_\infty-structure on the underlying wrapped Floer complex, and (under suitable assumptions) an A_\infty-homomorphism realizing the restriction to a Liouville subdomain. The construction of the A_\infty-structure relies on an implementation of homotopy direct limits, and involves some new moduli spaces which are solutions of generalized continuation map equations.

The homology of path spaces and Floer homology with conormal boundary conditions

We define the Floer complex for Hamiltonian orbits on the cotangent bundle of a compact manifold which satisfy non-local conormal boundary conditions. We prove that the homology of this chain complex is isomorphic to the singular homology of the natural path space associated to the boundary conditions.

Floer theory and low dimensional topology

The new 3 3 - and 4 4 -manifold invariants recently constructed by Ozsváth and Szabó are based on a Floer theory associated with Heegaard diagrams. The following notes try to give an accessible introduction to their work. In the first part we begin by outlining traditional Morse theory, using the Heegaard diagram of a 3 3 -manifold as an example. We then describe Witten’s approach to Morse theory and how this led to Floer theory. Finally, we discuss Lagrangian Floer homology. In the second part, we define the Heegaard Floer complexes, explaining how they arise as a special case of Lagrangian Floer theory. We then briefly describe some applications, in particular the new 4 4 -manifold invariant, which is conjecturally just the Seiberg–Witten invariant.

On the Floer homology of cotangent bundles

This paper concerns Floer homology for periodic orbits and for a Lagrangian intersection problem on the cotangent bundle T* M of a compact orientable manifold M. The first result is a new L∞ estimate for the solutions of the Floer equation, which allows us to deal with a larger—and more natural—class of Hamiltonians. The second and main result is a new construction of the isomorphism between the Floer homology and the singular homology of the free loop space of M in the periodic case, or of the based loop space of M in the Lagrangian intersection problem. The idea for the construction of such an isomorphism is to consider a Hamiltonian that is the Legendre transform of a Lagrangian on T M and to construct an isomorphism between the Floer complex and the Morse complex of the classical Lagrangian action functional on the space of W1,2 free or based loops on M. © 2005 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.