Course times: Wednesday 12:00-14:00, M101

Course Material

1. Milnor, Morse Theory

2. Matsumoto, An Introduction to Morse Theory

3. Hatcher, Algebraic Topology

Recommended previous knowledge: Differential topology (smooth manifolds, tangent bundles, vector fields) and algebraic topology.

Seminar plan

A detailed seminar plan will be posted here soon. If you'd like to give a specific talk please send me an email.

1. Introduction and talk distribution (Shai)

2. CW complexes

3. Homotopy equivlanece

4. Morse functions

5. The Morse lemma

6. Existence of Morse functions

7. Gradient-like vector fields and flows

8. Topology of sublevel sets

9. Homotopy type theorem

10. Handle decomposition

11. Examples

12. The unitary group U(n)

13. Homology

14. Morse Inequality