The parity of the Maslov index and the even cobordism category

Abstract

We give a formula for the parity of the Maslov index of a triple of Lagrangian subspaces of a skew symmetric bilinear form over the real numbers. We define an index two subcategory (the even subcategory) of a 3-dimensional cobordism category. The objects of the category are surfaces are equipped with Lagrangian subspaces of their real first homology. This generalizes a result of the first author where surfaces are equipped with Lagrangian subspaces of their rational first homology.