The number of critical elements of discrete Morse functions on non-compact surfaces

This paper is focused on looking for links between the topology of a connected and non-compact surface with finitely many ends and any proper discrete Morse function which can be defined on it. More precisely, we study the non-compact surfaces which admit a proper discrete Morse function with a given number of critical elements. In particular, given any of these surfaces, we obtain an optimal discrete Morse function on it, that is, with the minimum possible number of critical elements.