arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Michael Entov.
We discuss the occurrence of some notions and results from contact topology in the non-equilibrium thermodynamics. This includes the Reeb chords and the partial order on the space of Legendrian submanifolds.
We discuss non-equilibrium thermodynamics of the mean field Ising model from a geometric perspective, focusing on the thermodynamic limit. When the number of spins is finite, the Gibbs equilibria form a smooth Legendrian submanifold in the thermodynamic phase space whose points describe the stable macroscopic states of the system. We describe the convergence of these smooth Legendrian submanifolds, as the number of spins goes to infinity, to a singular Legendrian submanifold, admitting an analytic continuation that contains both the stable and metastable states. We also discuss the relaxation to a Gibbs equilibrium when the physical parameters are changed abruptly. The relaxation is defined via the gradient flow of the free energy with respect to the Wasserstein metric on microscopic states, that is, in the geometric language, via the gradient flow of the generating function of the equilibrium Legendrian with respect to the ghost variables. This leads to a discrete Fokker-Planck equation when the number of spins is finite. We show that in the thermodynamic limit this description is closely related to the seminal model of relaxation proposed by Glauber. Finally, we find a special range of parameters where such relaxation happens instantaneously, along the Reeb chords connecting the initial and the terminal Legendrian submanifolds.
Consider a symplectic embedding of a disjoint union of domains into a symplectic manifold $M$. Such an embedding is called Kahler-type, or respectively tame, if it is holomorphic with respect to some (not a priori fixed, Kahler-type) complex structure on $M$ compatible with the symplectic form, or respectively tamed by it. Assume that $M$ either of the following: a complex projective space (with the standard symplectic form), an even-dimensional torus or a K3 surface equipped with an irrational Kahler-type symplectic form. Then any two Kahler-type embeddings of a disjoint union of balls into $M$ can be mapped into each other by a symplectomorphism acting trivially on the homology. If the embeddings are holomorphic with respect to complex structures compatible with the symplectic form and lying in the same connected component of the space of Kahler-type complex structures on $M$, then the symplectomorphism can be chosen to be smoothly isotopic to the identity. For certain $M$ and certain disjoint unions of balls we describe precisely the obstructions to the existence of Kahler-type embeddings of the balls into $M$. In particular, symplectic volume is the only obstruction for the existence of Kahler-type embeddings of $l^n$ equal balls (for any $l$) into the $n$-dimensional complex projective space with the standard symplectic form and of any number of possibly different balls into a torus or a K3 surface, equipped with an irrational symplectic form. We also show that symplectic volume is the only obstruction for the existence of tame embeddings of disjoint unions of equal balls, polydisks, or parallelepipeds, into a torus equipped with a generic Kahler-type symplectic form. For balls and parallelepipeds the same is true for K3 surfaces.
A Kahler-type form is a symplectic form compatible with an integrable complex structure. Let M be either a torus or a K3-surface equipped with a Kahler-type form. We show that the homology class of any Maslov-zero Lagrangian torus in M has to be non-zero and primitive. This extends previous results of Abouzaid-Smith (for tori) and Sheridan-Smith (for K3-surfaces) who proved it for particular Kahler-type forms on M. In the K3 case our proof uses dynamical properties of the action of the diffeomorphism group of M on the space of the Kahler-type forms. These properties are obtained using Shah's arithmetic version of Ratner's orbit closure theorem.
We relate the machinery of persistence modules to the Legendrian contact homology theory and to Poisson bracket invariants, and use it to show the existence of connecting trajectories of contact and symplectic Hamiltonian flows.
We describe a method, based on "hard" contact topology, of showing the existence of semi-infinite trajectories of contact Hamiltonian flows which start on one Legendrian submanifold and asymptotically converge to another Legendrian submanifold. We discuss a mathematical model of non-equilibrium thermodynamics where such trajectories play a role of relaxation processes, and illustrate our results in the case of the Glauber dynamics for the mean field Ising model.
Let M be a closed symplectic manifold of volume V. We say that the symplectic packings of M by ellipsoids are unobstructed if any collection of disjoint symplectic ellipsoids (possibly of different sizes) of total volume less than V admits a symplectic embedding to M. We show that the symplectic packings by ellipsoids are unobstructed for all even-dimensional tori equipped with Kahler symplectic forms and all closed hyperkahler manifolds of maximal holonomy, or, more generally, for closed Campana simple manifolds (that is, Kahler manifolds that are not unions of their complex subvarieties), as well as for any closed Kahler manifold which is a limit of Campana simple manifolds in a smooth deformation. The proof involves the construction of a Kahler resolution of a Kahler orbifold with isolated singularities and relies on the results of Demailly-Paun and Miyaoka on Kahler cohomology classes.
We study two related invariants of Lagrangian submanifolds in symplectic manifolds. For a Lagrangian torus these invariants are functions on the first cohomology of the torus. The first invariant is of topological nature and is related to the study of Lagrangian isotopies with a given Lagrangian flux. More specifically, it measures the length of straight paths in the first cohomology that can be realized as the Lagrangian flux of a Lagrangian isotopy. The second invariant is of analytical nature and comes from symplectic function theory. It is defined for Lagrangian submanifolds admitting fibrations over a circle and has a dynamical interpretation. We partially compute these invariants for certain Lagrangian tori.
We present a new existence mechanism, based on symplectic topology, for orbits of Hamiltonian flows connecting a pair of disjoint subsets in the phase space. The method involves function theory on symplectic manifolds combined with rigidity of Lagrangian submanifolds. Applications include superconductivity channels in nearly integrable systems and dynamics near a perturbed unstable equilibrium.
Let M be a closed symplectic manifold of volume V. We say that M admits an unobstructed symplectic packing by balls if any collection of symplectic balls (of possibly different radii) of total volume less than V admits a symplectic embedding to M. In 1994 McDuff and Polterovich proved that symplectic packings of Kahler manifolds can be characterized in terms of the Kahler cones of their blow-ups. When M is a Kahler manifold which is not a union of its proper subvarieties (such a manifold is called Campana simple) these Kahler cones can be described explicitly using the Demailly and Paun structure theorem. We prove that any Campana simple Kahler manifold, as well as any manifold which is a limit of Campana simple manifolds in a smooth deformation, admits an unobstructed symplectic packing by balls. This is used to show that all even-dimensional tori equipped with Kahler symplectic forms and all hyperkahler manifolds of maximal holonomy admit unobstructed symplectic packings by balls. This generalizes a previous result by Latschev-McDuff-Schlenk. We also consider symplectic packings by other shapes and show, using Ratner's orbit closure theorem, that any even-dimensional torus equipped with a Kahler form whose cohomology class is not proportional to a rational one admits a full symplectic packing by any number of equal polydisks (and, in particular, by any number of equal cubes).
This is a survey about certain "almost homomorphisms" and "almost linear" functionals (called quasi-morphisms and quasi-states) in symplectic topology and their applications to Hamiltonian dynamics, functional-theoretic properties of Poisson brackets and algebraic and metric properties of symplectomorphism groups.
We introduce new invariants associated to collections of compact subsets of a symplectic manifold. They are defined through an elementary-looking variational problem involving Poisson brackets. The proof of the non-triviality of these invariants involves various flavors of Floer theory. We present applications to approximation theory on symplectic manifolds and to Hamiltonian dynamics.
This paper is a fusion of a survey and a research article. We focus on certain rigidity phenomena in function spaces associated to a symplectic manifold. Our starting point is a lower bound obtained in an earlier paper with Zapolsky for the uniform norm of the Poisson bracket of a pair of functions in terms of symplectic quasi-states. After a short review of the theory of symplectic quasi-states, we extend this bound to the case of iterated Poisson brackets. A new technical ingredient is the use of symplectic integrators. In addition, we discuss some applications to symplectic approximation theory and present a number of open problems.
Lie quasi-states on a real Lie algebra are functionals which are linear on any abelian subalgebra. We show that on the symplectic Lie algebra of rank at least 3 there is only one continuous non-linear Lie quasi-state (up to a scalar factor, modulo linear functionals). It is related to the asymptotic Maslov index of paths of symplectic matrices.
We discuss $C^0$-continuous homogeneous quasi-morphisms on the identity component of the group of compactly supported symplectomorphisms of a symplectic manifold. Such quasi-morphisms extend to the $C^0$-closure of this group inside the homeomorphism group. We show that for standard symplectic balls of any dimension, as well as for compact oriented surfaces, other than the sphere, the space of such quasi-morphisms is infinite-dimensional. In the case of surfaces, we give a user-friendly topological characterization of such quasi-morphisms. We also present an application to Hofer's geometry on the group of Hamiltonian diffeomorphisms of the ball.
The paper is devoted to function theory on symplectic manifolds. We study a natural class of functionals involving the double Poisson brackets from the viewpoint of their robustness properties with respect to small perturbations in the uniform norm. We observe an hierarchy of such robustness properties. The methods involve Hofer's geometry on the symplectic side and Landau-Hadamard-Kolmogorov inequalities on the function-theoretic side.
We show that there is an hierarchy of intersection rigidity properties of sets in a closed symplectic manifold: some sets cannot be displaced by symplectomorphisms from more sets than the others. We also find new examples of rigidity of intersections involving, in particular, specific fibers of moment maps of Hamiltonian torus actions, monotone Lagrangian submanifolds (following the works of P.Albers and P.Biran-O.Cornea), as well as certain, possibly singular, sets defined in terms of Poisson-commutative subalgebras of smooth functions. In addition, we get some geometric obstructions to semi-simplicity of the quantum homology of symplectic manifolds. The proofs are based on the Floer-theoretical machinery of partial symplectic quasi-states.
We review and streamline our previous results and the results of Y.Ostrover on the existence of Calabi quasi-morphisms and symplectic quasi-states on symplectic manifolds with semi-simple quantum homology. As an illustration, we discuss the case of symplectic toric Fano 4-manifolds. We present also new results due to D.McDuff: she observed that for the existence of quasi-morphisms/quasi-states it suffices to assume that the quantum homology contains a field as a direct summand, and she showed that this weaker condition holds true for one point blow-ups of non-uniruled symplectic manifolds.