Extensions of the loop product and coproduct, the space of antipodal paths and resonances of closed geodesics

Abstract

We study the space of paths in a closed manifold $M$ with endpoints determined by an involution $f\colon M\to M$. If the involution is fixed point free and if $M$ is $2$-connected then this path space is the universal covering space of the component of non-contractible loops of the free loop space of $M/\mathbb{Z}_2$. On the homology of said path space we study string topology operations which extend the Chas-Sullivan loop product and the Goresky-Hingston loop coproduct, respectively. We study the case of antipodal involution on the sphere in detail and use Morse-Bott theoretic methods to give a complete computation of the extended loop product and the extended coproduct on even-dimensional spheres. These results are then applied to prove a resonance theorem for closed geodesics on real projective space.