Canonical chain complexes for Morse-Smale vector fields

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Bannwart, Clemens, Landi, Claudia
Format: Preprint
Published: 2026
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_version_ 1866915761336877056
author Bannwart, Clemens
Landi, Claudia
author_facet Bannwart, Clemens
Landi, Claudia
contents In 1960, Smale defined a filtration of a closed smooth manifold by the unstable manifolds of fixed points and closed orbits of a Morse-Smale vector field defined on it, and derived generalized Morse inequalities. This suggests that, similarly to the Morse chain complex of a gradient-like vector field, even in the presence of closed orbits, Morse-Smale vector fields admit canonical chain complexes, invariant under topological equivalence, from which one can algebraically derive Morse inequalities. In this paper we show that this is actually the case, improving the state of the art that only offers non-canonical chain complexes. Technically, we achieve this result considering the Čech homology spectral sequence of the unstable manifolds filtration. In particular, we turn bounded exact couples into chain complexes such that the limit page of the spectral sequence associated with an exact couple gives the homology of the chain complex. We showcase our construction with examples.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2601_22066
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Canonical chain complexes for Morse-Smale vector fields
Bannwart, Clemens
Landi, Claudia
Algebraic Topology
Dynamical Systems
57R25, 37D15, 55U15
In 1960, Smale defined a filtration of a closed smooth manifold by the unstable manifolds of fixed points and closed orbits of a Morse-Smale vector field defined on it, and derived generalized Morse inequalities. This suggests that, similarly to the Morse chain complex of a gradient-like vector field, even in the presence of closed orbits, Morse-Smale vector fields admit canonical chain complexes, invariant under topological equivalence, from which one can algebraically derive Morse inequalities. In this paper we show that this is actually the case, improving the state of the art that only offers non-canonical chain complexes. Technically, we achieve this result considering the Čech homology spectral sequence of the unstable manifolds filtration. In particular, we turn bounded exact couples into chain complexes such that the limit page of the spectral sequence associated with an exact couple gives the homology of the chain complex. We showcase our construction with examples.
title Canonical chain complexes for Morse-Smale vector fields
topic Algebraic Topology
Dynamical Systems
57R25, 37D15, 55U15
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.22066