Automorphisms of Kronrod-Reeb graphs of Morse functions on 2-sphere

Abstract

Let $M$ be a compact two-dimensional manifold and, $f \in C^{\infty}(M, R)$ be a Morse function, and $\Gamma$ be its Kronrod-Reeb graph.Denote by $O(f)={f o h | h \in D(M)}$ the orbit of $f$ with respect to the natural right action of the group of diffeomorphisms $D(M)$ onC^{\infty}$, and by $S(f)={h\in D(M) | f o h = f }$ the coresponding stabilizer of this function.It is easy to show that each $h\in S(f)$ induces an automorphism of the graph $\Gamma$.Let $D_{id}(M)$ be the identity path component of $D(M)$, $S'(f) = S(f) \cap D_{id}(M)$ be the subgroup of $D_{id}(M)$ consisting of diffeomorphisms preserving $f$ and isotopic to identity map, and $G$ be the group of automorphisms of the Kronrod-Reeb graph induced by diffeomorphisms belonging to $S'(f)$. This group is one of key ingredients for calculating the homotopy type of the orbit $O(f)$. In the previous article the authors described the structure of groups $G$ for Morse functions on all orientable surfacesdistinct from $2$-torus and $2$-sphere.  The present paper is devoted to the case $M = S^2$. In this situation $\Gamma$ is always a tree, and therefore all elements of the group $G$ have a common fixed subtree $Fix(G)$, which may even consist of a unique vertex. Our main result calculates the groups $G$ for all Morse functions $f: S^2 \to R$ whose fixed subtree $Fix(G)$ consists of more than one point.