The differentials all count some flavor of pseudoholomorphic curves in a manifold with a cylindrical almost-complex structure whose ends at negative infinity are the given collection of closed orbits. For instance, in symplectic Floer homology, one considers the product of the mapping torus of a symplectomorphism with the real numbers; in symplectic field theory, one considers the symplectization of a contact manifold.
The product of a given embedded closed orbit with R is always a pseudoholomorphic curve, and such a curve is called a trivial cylinder. Trivial cylinders do not generally contribute to the aforementioned differentials, but they may appear as components of more complicated curves which do.
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Differential geometry is a mathematical discipline that studies the geometry of smooth shapes and smooth spaces, otherwise known as smooth manifolds. It uses the techniques of differential calculus, integral calculus, linear algebra and multilinear algebra. The field has its origins in the study of spherical geometry as far back as antiquity. It also relates to astronomy, the geodesy of the Earth, and later the study of hyperbolic geometry by Lobachevsky. The simplest examples of smooth spaces are the plane and space curves and surfaces in the three-dimensional Euclidean space, and the study of these shapes formed the basis for development of modern differential geometry during the 18th and 19th centuries.
In differential geometry, a subject of mathematics, a symplectic manifold is a smooth manifold, , equipped with a closed nondegenerate differential 2-form , called the symplectic form. The study of symplectic manifolds is called symplectic geometry or symplectic topology. Symplectic manifolds arise naturally in abstract formulations of classical mechanics and analytical mechanics as the cotangent bundles of manifolds. For example, in the Hamiltonian formulation of classical mechanics, which provides one of the major motivations for the field, the set of all possible configurations of a system is modeled as a manifold, and this manifold's cotangent bundle describes the phase space of the system.
Symplectic geometry is a branch of differential geometry and differential topology that studies symplectic manifolds; that is, differentiable manifolds equipped with a closed, nondegenerate 2-form. Symplectic geometry has its origins in the Hamiltonian formulation of classical mechanics where the phase space of certain classical systems takes on the structure of a symplectic manifold.
In mathematics, a symplectomorphism or symplectic map is an isomorphism in the category of symplectic manifolds. In classical mechanics, a symplectomorphism represents a transformation of phase space that is volume-preserving and preserves the symplectic structure of phase space, and is called a canonical transformation.
In gauge theory and mathematical physics, a topological quantum field theory is a quantum field theory which computes topological invariants.
In mathematics, contact geometry is the study of a geometric structure on smooth manifolds given by a hyperplane distribution in the tangent bundle satisfying a condition called 'complete non-integrability'. Equivalently, such a distribution may be given as the kernel of a differential one-form, and the non-integrability condition translates into a maximal non-degeneracy condition on the form. These conditions are opposite to two equivalent conditions for 'complete integrability' of a hyperplane distribution, i.e. that it be tangent to a codimension one foliation on the manifold, whose equivalence is the content of the Frobenius theorem.
In mathematics, specifically in topology and geometry, a pseudoholomorphic curve is a smooth map from a Riemann surface into an almost complex manifold that satisfies the Cauchy–Riemann equation. Introduced in 1985 by Mikhail Gromov, pseudoholomorphic curves have since revolutionized the study of symplectic manifolds. In particular, they lead to the Gromov–Witten invariants and Floer homology, and play a prominent role in string theory.
In mathematics, specifically in symplectic topology and algebraic geometry, Gromov–Witten (GW) invariants are rational numbers that, in certain situations, count pseudoholomorphic curves meeting prescribed conditions in a given symplectic manifold. The GW invariants may be packaged as a homology or cohomology class in an appropriate space, or as the deformed cup product of quantum cohomology. These invariants have been used to distinguish symplectic manifolds that were previously indistinguishable. They also play a crucial role in closed type IIA string theory. They are named after Mikhail Gromov and Edward Witten.
In mathematics, Floer homology is a tool for studying symplectic geometry and low-dimensional topology. Floer homology is a novel invariant that arises as an infinite-dimensional analogue of finite-dimensional Morse homology. Andreas Floer introduced the first version of Floer homology, now called Lagrangian Floer homology, in his proof of the Arnold conjecture in symplectic geometry. Floer also developed a closely related theory for Lagrangian submanifolds of a symplectic manifold. A third construction, also due to Floer, associates homology groups to closed three-dimensional manifolds using the Yang–Mills functional. These constructions and their descendants play a fundamental role in current investigations into the topology of symplectic and contact manifolds as well as (smooth) three- and four-dimensional manifolds.
In mathematics, specifically in the field of differential topology, Morse homology is a homology theory defined for any smooth manifold. It is constructed using the smooth structure and an auxiliary metric on the manifold, but turns out to be topologically invariant, and is in fact isomorphic to singular homology. Morse homology also serves as a model for the various infinite-dimensional generalizations known as Floer homology theories.
In mathematics, the Gromov invariant of Clifford Taubes counts embedded pseudoholomorphic curves in a symplectic 4-manifold, where the curves are holomorphic with respect to an auxiliary compatible almost complex structure.
In mathematics, the Lagrangian Grassmannian is the smooth manifold of Lagrangian subspaces of a real symplectic vector space V. Its dimension is 1/2n(n + 1) (where the dimension of V is 2n). It may be identified with the homogeneous space
In differential topology, given a family of Morse-Smale functions on a smooth manifold X parameterized by a closed interval I, one can construct a Morse-Smale vector field on X × I whose critical points occur only on the boundary. The Morse differential defines a chain map from the Morse complexes at the boundaries of the family, the continuation map. This can be shown to descend to an isomorphism on Morse homology, proving its invariance of Morse homology of a smooth manifold.
In mathematics, the Weinstein conjecture refers to a general existence problem for periodic orbits of Hamiltonian or Reeb vector flows. More specifically, the conjecture claims that on a compact contact manifold, its Reeb vector field should carry at least one periodic orbit.
In the mathematical field of symplectic topology, Gromov's compactness theorem states that a sequence of pseudoholomorphic curves in an almost complex manifold with a uniform energy bound must have a subsequence which limits to a pseudoholomorphic curve which may have nodes or "bubbles". A bubble is a holomorphic sphere which has a transverse intersection with the rest of the curve. This theorem, and its generalizations to punctured pseudoholomorphic curves, underlies the compactness results for flow lines in Floer homology and symplectic field theory.
In theoretical physics, the BRST formalism, or BRST quantization denotes a relatively rigorous mathematical approach to quantizing a field theory with a gauge symmetry. Quantization rules in earlier quantum field theory (QFT) frameworks resembled "prescriptions" or "heuristics" more than proofs, especially in non-abelian QFT, where the use of "ghost fields" with superficially bizarre properties is almost unavoidable for technical reasons related to renormalization and anomaly cancellation.
Clifford Henry Taubes is the William Petschek Professor of Mathematics at Harvard University and works in gauge field theory, differential geometry, and low-dimensional topology. His brother is the journalist Gary Taubes.
In mathematics, specifically in symplectic topology and algebraic geometry, a quantum cohomology ring is an extension of the ordinary cohomology ring of a closed symplectic manifold. It comes in two versions, called small and big; in general, the latter is more complicated and contains more information than the former. In each, the choice of coefficient ring significantly affects its structure, as well.
The Geometry Festival is an annual mathematics conference held in the United States.
In symplectic geometry, the spectral invariants are invariants defined for the group of Hamiltonian diffeomorphisms of a symplectic manifold, which is closed related to Floer theory and Hofer geometry.
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