diff b34550f..b1f9bc4 nearby_lagrangian_counterexample_v2.txt
diff --git a/nearby_lagrangian_counterexample_v2.txt b/nearby_lagrangian_counterexample_v2.txt index 07ad7bd..eaa8306 100644 --- a/nearby_lagrangian_counterexample_v2.txt +++ b/nearby_lagrangian_counterexample_v2.txt @@ -3,41 +3,6 @@ A COUNTEREXAMPLE TO THE NEARBY LAGRANGIAN CONJECTURE A complete, self-contained proof ============================================================================== -What this document is. - In 1980s symplectic geometry, Rene Arnold asked a deceptively simple - question. Take a smooth closed manifold Q (closed = compact, no - boundary). Look at its cotangent bundle T*Q, which is the phase space - of a particle moving on Q. Inside it sits the zero section (the set of - points with zero momentum), and that zero section is a "Lagrangian" - submanifold. Arnold asked: if L is any closed Lagrangian submanifold of - T*Q that is "exact" (a technical condition meaning L has no symplectic - area), must L be Hamiltonian isotopic to the zero section? In plain - words: can every such L be slid continuously, by a physically allowed - motion, onto the zero section? - - This is the NEARBY LAGRANGIAN CONJECTURE. For decades every known - example worked. This document gives one that fails. The manifold we use - is Q = S^9 x S^(N-1) for a sufficiently large even integer N. We build a - closed exact smoothly embedded Lagrangian L inside T*Q that is - DIFFEOMORPHIC to Q (so it looks just like the base) but that no - compactly supported Hamiltonian isotopy can carry onto the zero section. - - The failure is not about the shape of L. Abstractly L and Q are the same - smooth manifold. The failure is about HOW L is knotted inside T*Q. That - kind of failure is exactly what symplectic topology is for. - - - - We use only plain ASCII. R^n is real n-space. S^k is the unit sphere in - R^(k+1). <v,w> is the dot product. |x| is the length of a vector. A - "smooth" map is infinitely differentiable. "Closed" always means compact - without boundary. - - - - - -============================================================================== SECTION 1. BACKGROUND: COTANGENT BUNDLES, LAGRANGIANS, ISOTOPY ==============================================================================