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Nancy Hingston

Publications and source records attributed to Nancy Hingston.

8 recordsLinked to original sources
arXiv2023

Loop coproduct in Morse and Floer homology

By a well-known theorem of Viterbo, the symplectic homology of the cotangent bundle of a closed manifold is isomorphic to the homology of its loop space. In this paper we extend the scope of this isomorphism in several directions. First, we give a direct definition of {\em Rabinowitz loop homology} in terms of Morse theory on the loop space and prove that its product agrees with the pair-of-pants product on Rabinowitz Floer homology. The proof uses compactified moduli spaces of punctured annuli. Second, we prove that, when restricted to {\em positive} Floer homology, resp.~loop space homology relative to the constant loops, the Viterbo isomorphism intertwines various constructions of secondary pair-of-pants coproducts with the loop homology coproduct. Third, we introduce {\em reduced loop homology}, which is a common domain of definition for a canonical reduction of the loop product and for extensions of the loop homology coproduct which together define the structure of a commutative cocommutative unital infinitesimal anti-symmetric bialgebra. Along the way, we show that the Abbondandolo-Schwarz quasi-isomorphism going from the Floer complex of quadratic Hamiltonians to the Morse complex of the energy functional can be turned into a filtered chain isomorphism by using linear Hamiltonians and the square root of the energy functional.

math.SG↗
arXiv2022

Product and coproduct in string topology

Let M be a closed Riemannian manifold. We extend the product of Goresky-Hingston, on the cohomology of the free loop space of M relative to the constant loops, to a nonrelative product. It is graded associative and commutative, and compatible with the length filtration on the loop space, like the original product. We prove the following new geometric property of the dual homology coproduct: the nonvanishing of the k-th iterate of the coproduct on a homology class ensures the existence of a loop with a (k+1)-fold self-intersection in every representative of the class. For spheres and projective spaces, we show that this is sharp, in the sense that the k-th iterated coproduct vanishes precisely on those classes that have support in the loops with at most k-fold self-intersections. We study the interactions between this cohomology product and the more well-known Chas-Sullivan product. We give explicit integral chain level constructions of these loop products and coproduct, including a new construction of the Chas-Sullivan product, which avoid the technicalities of infinite dimensional tubular neighborhoods and delicate intersections of chains in loop spaces.

math.AT↗
arXiv2020

Poincar\'e duality for loop spaces

We show that Rabinowitz Floer homology and cohomology carry the structure of a graded Frobenius algebra for both closed and open strings. We prove a Poincar\'e duality theorem between homology and cohomology that preserves this structure. This lifts to a duality theorem between graded open-closed TQFTs. We use in a systematic way the formalism of Tate vector spaces. Specializing to the case of cotangent bundles, we define Rabinowitz loop homology and cohomology and explain from a unified perspective pairs of dual results that have been observed over the years in the context of the search for closed geodesics. These concern critical levels, relations to the based loop space, manifolds all of whose geodesics are closed, Bott index iteration, and level-potency. Moreover, the graded Frobenius algebra structure gives meaning and proof to a relation conjectured by Sullivan between the loop product and coproduct.

math.SG↗
arXiv2012

Resonance for loop homology of spheres

A Riemannian or Finsler metric on a compact manifold M gives rise to a length function on the free loop space ΛM, whose critical points are the closed geodesics in the given metric. If X is a homology class on ΛM, the minimax critical level cr(X) is a critical value. Let M be a sphere of dimension >2, and fix a metric g and a coefficient field G. We prove that the limit as deg(X) goes to infinity of cr(X)/deg(X) exists. We call this limit the "global mean frequency" of M. As a consequence we derive resonance statements for closed geodesics on spheres; in particular either all homology on ΛM of sufficiently high degreee lies hanging on closed geodesics whose mean frequency (average index / length) equals the global mean frequency, or there is a sequence of infinitely many closed geodesics whose mean frequencies converge to the global mean frequency. The proof uses the Chas-Sullivan product and results of Goresky-Hingston [GH].

math.DG↗
arXiv2007

Loop Products and Closed Geodesics

We show the Chas-Sullivan product (on the homology of the free loop space of a Riemannian manifold) is related to the Morse index of its closed geodesics. We construct related products in the cohomology of the free loop space and of the based loop space, and show they are nontrivial.

math.AT↗
arXiv2002

Metrics without Morse index bounds

On any surface we give an example of a metric that contains simple closed geodesics with arbitrary high Morse index. Similarly, on any 3-manifold we give an example of a metric that contains embedded minimal tori with arbitrary high Morse index. Previously no such examples were known. We also discuss whether or not such bounds should hold for a generic metric and why bumpy does not seem to be the right generic notion. Finally, we mention briefly what such bounds might be used for.

math.GT↗