Morse-Bott functions with two critical values on a surface

Gelbukh, Irina

Czechoslovak Mathematical Journal, Tome 71 (2021) no. 3, pp. 865-880.

Résumé

We study Morse-Bott functions with two critical values (equivalently, nonconstant without saddles) on closed surfaces. We show that only four surfaces admit such functions (though in higher dimensions, we construct many such manifolds, e.g. as fiber bundles over already constructed manifolds with the same property). We study properties of such functions. Namely, their Reeb graphs are path or cycle graphs; any path graph, and any cycle graph with an even number of vertices, is isomorphic to the Reeb graph of such a function. They have a specific number of center singularities and singular circles with nonorientable normal bundle, and an unlimited number (with some conditions) of singular circles with orientable normal bundle. They can, or cannot, be chosen as the height function associated with an immersion of the surface in the three-dimensional space, depending on the surface and the Reeb graph. In addition, for an arbitrary Morse-Bott function on a closed surface, we show that the Euler characteristic of the surface is determined by the isolated singularities and does not depend on the singular circles.

Détail

DOI : 10.21136/CMJ.2021.0125-20

Classification : 05C38, 57K20, 58C05
Keywords: Morse-Bott function; height function; surface; critical value; Reeb graph