Incidence coefficients in the Novikov Complex for Morse forms: rationality and exponential growth properties

Let f : M → S 1 be a Morse map, v a transverse f -gradient. Theconstruction of the Novikov complex associates to these data a free chain complexC ∗ (f, v) over the ring Z[t]][t −1 ], generated by the critical points of f and computingthe completed homology module of the corresponding infinite cyclic covering of M .Novikov’s Exponential Growth Conjecture says that the boundary operators in thiscomplex are power series of non-zero convergence raduis.In [12] the author announced the proof of the Novikov conjecture for the case ofC 0 -generic gradients together with several generalizations. The proofs of the firstpart of this work were published in [13]. The present article contains the proofs ofthe second part.There is a refined version of the Novikov complex, defined over a suitable com-pletion of the group ring of the fundamental group. We prove that for a C 0 -genericf -gradient the corresponding incidence coefficients belong to the image in the Novikovring of a (non commutative) localization of the fundamental group ring.The Novikov construction generalizes also to the case of Morse 1-forms. In thiscase the corresponding incidence coefiicients belong to a certain completion of thering of integral Laurent polynomials of several variables. We prove that for a givenMorse form ω and a C 0 -generic ω-gradient these incidence coefficients are rationalfunctions.The incidence coefficients in the Novikov complex are obtained by counting thealgebraic number of the trajectories of the gradient, joining the zeros of the Morseform. There is V.I.Arnold’s version of the exponential growth conjecture, whichconcerns the total number of trajectories. We confirm this stronger form of theconjecture for any given Morse form and a C 0 -dense set of its gradients.We give an example of explicit computation of the Novikov complex.