Embedded contact homology and open book decompositions

This is the first of a series of papers devoted to proving the equivalence of Heegaard Floer homology and embedded contact homology (abbreviated ECH). In this paper we prove that, given a closed, oriented, contact $3$-manifold, there is an equivalence between ECH of the closed $3$-manifold and a version of ECH, defined on the complement of the binding of an adapted open book decomposition.Comment: First revision: A mistake in our use of Morse-Bott techniques in ECH has been fixed and results on sutured ECH have been added. Second revision: bibliography updated. Third revision: exposition improved and details added following referees' suggestions. Fourth revision: we added an appendix sketching the proof of the Morse-Bott gluing statements used in the articl

A survey of Heegaard Floer homology

This work has two goals. The first is to provide a conceptual introduction to Heegaard Floer homology, the second is to survey the current state of the field, without aiming for completeness. After reviewing the structure of Heegaard Floer homology, we list some of its most important applications. Many of these are purely topological results, not referring to Heegaard Floer homology itself. Then, we briefly outline the construction of Lagrangian intersection Floer homology. We construct the Heegaard Floer chain complex as a special case of the above, and try to motivate the role of the various seemingly ad hoc features such as admissibility, the choice of basepoint, and Spin^c-structures. We also discuss the proof of invariance of the homology up to isomorphism under all the choices made, and how to define Heegaard Floer homology using this in a functorial way (naturality). Next, we explain why Heegaard Floer homology is computable, and how it lends itself to the various combinatorial descriptions. The last chapter gives an overview of the definition and applications of sutured Floer homology, which includes sketches of some of the key proofs. Throughout, we have tried to collect some of the important open conjectures in the area. For example, a positive answer to two of these would give a new proof of the Poincar\'e conjecture.Comment: 38 pages, 1 figure, a few minor correction

Optimal topological simplification of discrete functions on surfaces

We solve the problem of minimizing the number of critical points among all functions on a surface within a prescribed distance {\delta} from a given input function. The result is achieved by establishing a connection between discrete Morse theory and persistent homology. Our method completely removes homological noise with persistence less than 2{\delta}, constructively proving the tightness of a lower bound on the number of critical points given by the stability theorem of persistent homology in dimension two for any input function. We also show that an optimal solution can be computed in linear time after persistence pairs have been computed.Comment: 27 pages, 8 figure

Convex cocompactness and stability in mapping class groups

We introduce a strong notion of quasiconvexity in finitely generated groups, which we call stability. Stability agrees with quasiconvexity in hyperbolic groups and is preserved under quasi-isometry for finitely generated groups. We show that the stable subgroups of mapping class groups are precisely the convex cocompact subgroups. This generalizes a well-known result of Behrstock and is related to questions asked by Farb-Mosher and Farb.Comment: 15 pages, 1 figur