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The classical Morse theory proceeds by considering sublevel sets f^{−1}(−∞,a] of a Morse function f:M→R, where M is a smooth finite-dimensional manifold. In this paper, we study the topology of the level sets f^{−1}(a) and give conditions under which the topology of f^{−1}(a) changes when passing a critical value. We show that for a general class of functions, which includes all exhaustive Morse functions, the topology of a regular level f^{−1}(a) always changes when passing a single critical point, unless the index of the critical point is half the dimension of the manifold M. When f is a natural Hamiltonian on a cotangent bundle, we obtain more precise results in terms of the topology of the base space. (Counter-)examples and applications to celestial mechanics are also discussed.

In [4] the authors observed that the topological methods in the theory of three-dimensional manifolds can be modified to settle some old problems in the classical theory of minimal surfaces in euclidean space (see also [1],[12]). In [4] and [5] we found that we could use the theory of minimal surfaces to extend the theorems of Papakriakopoulous, Whitehead and Shapiro, Stalling and Epstein on the Dehn's lemma, loop theorem and sphere theorem. The key point to our approach to these topological theorems is the following: Given a certain family of maps of the disk or sphere into our three-dimensional manifold M, we minimize the area of the maps (with respect to the pulled back metric) in this family and prove the existence of the minimal map. Then by using the area minimizing property of the map and the tower construction in topology, we prove that any area minimizing map in the family is an embedding. In this way

Kawakubo and Uchida showed that, if a closed oriented 4k-dimensional manifold M admits a semi-free circle action such that the dimension of the fixed point set is less than 2k, then the signature of M vanishes. In this note, by using G-signature theorem and the rigidity of the signature operator, we generalize this result to more general circle actions. Combining the same idea with the remarkable WittenTaubesBott rigidity theorem, we explore more vanishing results on spin manifolds admitting such circle actions. Our results are closely related to some earlier results of ConnerFloyd, LandweberStong and HirzebruchSlodowy.