Morse function

English

Etymology

Named after Marston Morse.

Noun

Morse function (plural Morse functions)

1. A real-valued function on a differentiable manifold such that, at each point in its domain where the function's differential is zero, the function's Hessian is nonsingular.

Usage notes

• Some sources require also for each $t\in \mathbb {R}$ that the preimage of $\left(-\infty ,t\right)$ be compact, or that the preimage of $t$ contain at most one point with zero differential.

Further reading

• Morse function on Wikipedia.Wikipedia