Simplifying Weinstein Morse functions

Abstract

We prove that the minimum number of critical points of a Weinstein Morse function on a Weinstein domain of dimension at least six is at most two more than the minimum number of critical points of a smooth Morse function on that domain; if the domain has non-zero middle-dimensional homology, these two numbers agree. There is also an upper bound on the number of gradient trajectories between critical points in smoothly trivial Weinstein cobordisms. As an application, we show that the number of generators for the Grothendieck group of the wrapped Fukaya category is at most the number of generators for singular cohomology and hence vanishes for any Weinstein ball. We also give a topological obstruction to the existence of finite-dimensional representations of the Chekanov-Eliashberg DGA of Legendrian spheres.