Reeb Spaces of Smooth Functions on Manifolds

By Osamu Saeki. International mathematics research notices, 2020

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The Reeb space of a continuous function is the space of connected components of the level sets. In this paper, we first prove that the Reeb space of a smooth function on a closed manifold with finitely many critical values has the structure of a finite graph without loops. We also show that an arbitrary finite graph without loops can be realized as the Reeb space of a certain smooth function on a closed manifold with finitely many critical values, where the corresponding level sets can also be preassigned. Finally, we show that a continuous map of a smooth closed connected manifold to a finite connected graph without loops that induces an epimorphism between the fundamental groups is identified with the natural quotient map to the Reeb space of a certain smooth function with finitely many critical values, up to homotopy. Dedicated to Professor Toshizumi Fukui on the occasion of his 60th birthday.

Subfields: Computational Theory and Mathematics, Mathematical Physics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/49b9d8bde8f44241e8baa171c3c9b2e8ffd82676