Questions tagged [contact-geometry]

Contact manifolds, contact structures, contact forms, Reeb dynamics, Legendrian knots, contact homology, symplectic field theory

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Is tightness decidable?

Given a contact structure on a three-manifold, is there an algorithm to decide whether or not it tight? For concreteness' sake, let's agree to represent the given contact three-manifold via an open ...
John Pardon's user avatar
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12 votes
1 answer
869 views

On a corollary of a paper by Colin and Honda

The question is about the last sentence of the last corollary of Stabilizing the monodromy of an open book decomposition by Vicent Colin and Ko Honda. This question is also related to this other ...
Paul's user avatar
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9 votes
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546 views

Schoenflies and symplectic topology

The final report from a workshop on Morse theory in low-dimensional and symplectic topology includes the following question, posed by Michael Hutchings: Can we apply symplectic geometry to solve the ...
Kyle Hayden's user avatar
7 votes
0 answers
286 views

On exotic symplectic structures of smooth closed 4-manifolds

What are some known techniques and examples of exotic symplectic structures on a fixed smooth closed 4-manifolds [by exotic I mean two symplectic structures that are not symplectomorphic]. This sounds ...
Anubhav Mukherjee's user avatar
7 votes
0 answers
444 views

Correct notion of chain homotopy for linearized homology of augmented DGAs?

$\require{AMScd}$ Preliminaries: Let $(A,\partial)$ be a differential graded $k$-algebra with an augmentation $\epsilon$. That is, $\epsilon$ is a DGA map $\epsilon:(A,\partial) \to k$ where $k$ is ...
Julian Chaidez's user avatar
7 votes
0 answers
205 views

When do geodesics reconverge?

Say I stand at the north pole and talk; in sufficiently frictionless conditions, one imagines that someone standing at the south pole could listen. More generally, say $M$ is a compact Riemannian ...
Vivek Shende's user avatar
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7 votes
0 answers
201 views

Biholomorphic neighborhoods of the boundary of Stein domains

Let $(X_1,J_1)$ and $(X_2,J_2)$ be Stein domains with the same contact boundary $(Y,\xi)$. Under what conditions does there exist a biholomorphism between a neighborhood of their respective boundaries ...
PVAL's user avatar
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6 votes
0 answers
586 views

Gompf's invariant of $2$-plane fields

I am interested in low dimensional contact topology. These days I read "Handlebody construction of Stein surfaces" written by R. E. Gompf, and study an invariant $\theta (\xi)$. This invariant is ...
Math1016's user avatar
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5 votes
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231 views

Overtwisted contact forms on open manifolds

I tried first at Math Stack Exchange but got no answers, so I thought maybe this question belongs here. It is known that on closed $3$-manifolds the Reeb vector field of any contact form inducing an ...
Douglas Finamore's user avatar
5 votes
0 answers
245 views

Legendrian surgery and invertible elements in zeroth degree symplectic cohomology

Is there anything known about the relation between Legendrian handle attachment and invertible elements in $\mathit{SH}^0(M)$? As the simplest interesting case, take $M_0$ to be the cotangent bundle $...
YHBKJ's user avatar
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Is there any known relationship between sutured contact homology and Legendrian contact homology?

On one hand, Colin-Ghiggini-Honda-Hutchings' construction (https://arxiv.org/abs/1004.2942) provides an invariant of a Legendrian $L$ in a closed contact manifold $(M,\xi)$ via the sutured contact ...
Ian Montague's user avatar
5 votes
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196 views

Contact geometry: approximation of Legendrian mappings

Let $\alpha$ be a standard contact form on $\mathbb{R}^{2n+1}$. We say that a map $f:\mathbb{R}^k\to\mathbb{R}^{2n+1}$ contact if $f^*\alpha=0$. Question 1. Is it true that a $C^1$-contact ...
Piotr Hajlasz's user avatar
5 votes
0 answers
99 views

Is there a simply connected contact manifold, "non-exactly" fillable, cappable, such that the whole thing is symplectically aspherical?

Is there an example of a simply connected contact manifold W, with a non exact symplectic filling $M_1$, (that is, $M_1$ is a symplectic manifold, with contact boundary $W$ and a Liouville vector ...
Yaniv Ganor's user avatar
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4 votes
0 answers
125 views

Overtwisted contact structures on $S^3$

All the isotopy classes of overtwisted contact structures are classified by the Hopf invariant. Are any of these contact structures contactomorphic? Suppose $d_{3}(\xi_{n}) = n$, then my guess is that ...
no_idea's user avatar
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4 votes
0 answers
240 views

Maximal Thurston--Bennequin number of boundary knot classes in contact handlebodies

Let $H$ be a contact handlebody. In other words, $H$ is a small regular neighborhood of a Legendrian graph in a contact $3$-manifold (wlog $\mathbb R^3$). Equivalently, $H=(\Sigma\times[0,1],dt+\...
John Pardon's user avatar
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4 votes
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Sheaves with specified singular support at infinity coming from hyperplane arrangements

Given a manifold $M$, we consider its cotangent bundle $T^*M$, and its cocircle bundle $T^\infty M$, quotienting out by the scaling action of the positive reals. Given a Legendrian submanifold $\...
Hugh Thomas's user avatar
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4 votes
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138 views

Are these two arguments incompatible?

I want to understand why (if so) these two arguments are not incompatible. And if that's the case, which one is wrong. First we have this paper (by Honda, Kazez and Matic). We look at the last Lemma ...
Paul's user avatar
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4 votes
0 answers
123 views

Bound on critical points of Lefschetz fibration over the disk with prescribed monodromy

Let $\phi$ be a right-veering diffeomorphism of a surface $\Sigma$ of genus $g$ and $r$ boundary components. Suppose that the diffeomorphism is freely periodic so if $M$ is the associated open book ...
Paul's user avatar
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4 votes
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Right-veering periodic automorphisms of surfaces that are not composition of right-handed Dehn twists

Basically the title of the question. For the sake of completeness I state an introduction to the question. In "Right-veering diffeomorphisms of compact surfaces with boundary I" and II, the authors ...
Paul's user avatar
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4 votes
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Neighborhood of (singular) Legendrian with convex boundary

Let $(M, \xi)$ be a contact manifold, and $\Lambda \subset M$ a closed connected Legendrian with a tubular open neighborhood $W$. The question is that, can one find a smaller tubular neighborhood $U \...
Peng's user avatar
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4 votes
0 answers
236 views

Contact manifolds and pseudodifferential operators

By way of background, I am currently trying to understand the theory of pseudodifferential operators in the context of contact geometry. I have some knowledge of pseudodifferential operators on ...
user93630's user avatar
4 votes
0 answers
459 views

Transversality in Bourgeois Oancea's non-equivariant contact homology

In their paper, "AN EXACT SEQUENCE FOR CONTACT- AND SYMPLECTIC HOMOLOGY", Bourgeois and Oancea defined, whenever there is sufficient transversality, a "non-equivariant contact homology". Essentially, ...
user36931's user avatar
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3 votes
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78 views

Characterization of contact vector fields

Let $H$ be a subbundle of the tangent bundle $TM$ of a smooth manifold $M$. A vector field $K$ on $M$ is contact if its flow $\Phi_K^t$ preserves $H$. I found in many references the following ...
Seba's user avatar
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3 votes
0 answers
116 views

Smooth handle attachment vs Weinstein handle attachment

Given a closed smooth manifold $M$ of dimension $n$, to which we attach a $k$-handle $H_k$. Take $T^{\ast} M$, can one realize $T^{\ast} (M\cup H_k)$ as a result of symplectic or Weinstein handle ...
Sergey Antonov's user avatar
3 votes
0 answers
142 views

Chekanov-Eliashberg Legendrian DGA with positive grading?

I was just looking back to some notes that I took a few years ago, when I was reading Etnyre's notes on Legendrian Contact Homology in $\mathbb R^3$ and I happened upon the following question that I ...
Nikhil Sahoo's user avatar
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3 votes
0 answers
317 views

boundary connect sum of Ganatra-Pardon-Shende

In Section 3.4 of https://arxiv.org/pdf/1809.03427.pdf, Ganatra-Pardon-Shende define the boundary connnect sum of two exact conical Lagrangians in a Liouville domain. In particular, in Figure 10, they ...
mathdonkey's user avatar
3 votes
0 answers
104 views

Reference for "holomorphic contact geometry"

Just like holomorphic symplectic geometry is a complexification of real symplectic geometry, I am wondering is there any good survey paper or book talking about holomorphic version of real contact ...
Ying Xie's user avatar
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3 votes
0 answers
102 views

Contact 3-manifolds with hyperkahler Stein fillings?

Is there any classification result on (homeomorphism type) of contact 3-manifolds $\Sigma$ that have Stein filling $W$ that is 1. Hyperkahler (s.t. Stein structure is the Kahler part of it) 2. not ...
Filip's user avatar
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3 votes
0 answers
236 views

Where can I find good surveys on Symplectic and Contact geometry

Are there any good survey articles in symplectic and contact geometry, which focus on the "big picture", i.e how this discipline fits into the mathematical world ? In the symplectic case : I am ...
BrianT's user avatar
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3 votes
0 answers
217 views

Lutz twist and open book decompositions

Let $M^3$ be a closed oriented 3-manifold, endowed with an open book decomposition. Consider a section of the open book, that is a knot $K \subset M$ disjoint from the binding and meeting every page ...
Daniele Zuddas's user avatar
3 votes
0 answers
149 views

The isotopy class of a Boothby-Wang contact structure

Let $p:\Sigma\to M$ be a non-trivial principal $S^1$-bundle over a closed orientable surface $M$. Let's call $V$ the vector field generating the $S^1$-action. It is known that there exists a Boothby-...
GabrieleBenedetti's user avatar
2 votes
0 answers
103 views

Almost contact structures on spheres

I will write $(M,\xi)=\mathbf{OB}(P,\phi)$ to denote that $M$ admits an open book decomposition with page $P$ and monodromy $\phi$ supporting a contact structure $\xi$. I will focus on the case where $...
Agustin Moreno's user avatar
2 votes
0 answers
79 views

Weinstein fillings of a unit cotangent bundle

Given a closed, orientable manifold M, and its unit cotangent bundle $ST^{\ast}M$. I wonder under which conditions $ST^{\ast}M$ admits a subcritical Weinstein filling?
Alex Son's user avatar
2 votes
0 answers
94 views

How does the Maslov index of a loop `project’ to the rotation number?

I’m trying to learn some Legendrian contact homology and the grading of the generators of the DGA are given by computing a fractional rotation number. In the symplectisation, this number is the Conley-...
no_idea's user avatar
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2 votes
0 answers
124 views

Convex surfaces with transverse boundary (contact geometry)

Suppose I have a compact surface $\Sigma$ in a contact 3-manifold, where the boundary $\partial\Sigma$ is transverse to the contact structure. Am I able to perturb $\Sigma$ rel boundary so that it is ...
no_idea's user avatar
  • 459
2 votes
1 answer
188 views

Superlevel sets of a parametrized quadratic forms

Let $N$ be an odd integer, $n\in\mathbb{N}$, and $-\frac{2T}{NR^2}\leq a\leq0$ for given $R,T\in\mathbb{R}$ with $\frac{T}{NR^2}\leq\frac{\pi}{2}$. Now consider the quadratic form $\Omega(a)=\sum_{l\...
SoYu's user avatar
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2 votes
0 answers
66 views

«Euclidean» local systems

The moduli space of G-local systems on a surface is a fundamental object in mathematics. The cases $G=SU(2)$ and $G=SL_2(\mathbb{R})$ are of particular interest. Consider the group $E$ of isometries ...
Daniil Rudenko's user avatar
2 votes
0 answers
182 views

Stabilizing an open book with Anosov piece

It was proven by Colin and Honda in Stabilizing the monodromy of an open book decomposition that any diffeomorphism can be made pseudo-Anosov and right-veering after a series of positive ...
Paul's user avatar
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2 votes
0 answers
308 views

First Chern Class of Contact Structure which is not Torsion

Let $(M,\xi)$ be a closed connected $3-$dimensional contact manifold with contact structure $\xi$. It is known that the first Chern class $c_{1}(\xi)$ defines an element in $H^{2}(M;\mathbb{Z})$ and ...
Raffael's user avatar
  • 39
2 votes
0 answers
210 views

contact structure on double branched covers of $S^3$

We can assign a natural contact structure to double branched cover of a transverse knot $k$ in the $3$-sphere with its standard contact structure $(S^3,\xi_{st})$, as described in:http://arxiv.org/pdf/...
nikita's user avatar
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2 votes
0 answers
86 views

Extendability of Contact Structures; Foliations of $S^2$

I am currently reading Eliashberg's paper on the classification of overtwisted contact structures (http://bogomolov-lab.ru/G-sem/eliashberg-tight-overtwisted.pdf). In it, there is the following ...
Guest's user avatar
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2 votes
0 answers
164 views

Homotoping a 2-plane field on a closed orientable 3-manifold to a contact structure

I am a beginner in Contact Geometry. To prove that the inclusion $\text{Cont}(M)\hookrightarrow \text{Dist}(M)$ induces surjection at $\pi_0$ level, the closest I got was based on Ko Honda's notes. ...
Karthik C's user avatar
  • 261
1 vote
0 answers
63 views

Looking for examples of 3rd-order contact transformations

In the Herglotz Lectures on Contact Transformations and Hamiltonian Systems, after going through contact transformations of the form $X=X(x,y,p)$, $Y=Y(x,y,p)$, $P=P(x,y,p)$ it is stated: As a final ...
Eli Bartlett's user avatar
1 vote
0 answers
57 views

Lagrangian cobordisms from a Legendrian knot to its scaled version

Having a Legendrian knot L in $\mathbb R^3$ and its scale aL (the length of Reeb chords of it are scaled by a>0), are these two Legendrians Legendrian isotopic? Maybe weaker, is there an exact ...
Anya Seaver's user avatar
1 vote
0 answers
159 views

Does the blow-up preserve symplectic structure?

Let $X \subset \mathbb P(\mathfrak g)$ be an adjoint variety for a simple complex Lie algebra $\mathfrak g$ appearing in the last line of the Freudenthal Magic Square, that is $\mathfrak g \in \{F_4,...
Bobech's user avatar
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1 vote
0 answers
67 views

In a contact Lie algebra, when is the Reeb vector a semisimple element?

Below is a question I have come across in my research, and it seems like a question that has been answered (or at least asked) in the past; however, I have been unable to find any references that ...
Nick R's user avatar
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1 vote
0 answers
67 views

Isotopy of open book supporting same contact structure

In dimension 3, the Giroux correspondence gives us a bijection between contact structures (up to isotopy) and open book decompositions (up to positive stabilisation). Moreover, Giroux shows that two ...
no_idea's user avatar
  • 459
1 vote
0 answers
164 views

Maximal dimension guaranteed for integral manifolds of hyperplane distributions

To KSackel and anyone else has viewed this: I'm sorry my edits have been all over the place. I've tried to cut it down to my remaining curiosities, so there's less to wade through (and hopefully fewer ...
Nikhil Sahoo's user avatar
  • 1,175
1 vote
0 answers
210 views

Genericity of contact structures all of whose closed Reeb orbits are nondegenerate

First, a contact form $\alpha$ on $M$ with Reeb vector field $R$ is said to be non-degenerate if, for any point $p$ such that $\phi_T^R(p) = p$, we have $\det{(\textrm{id}_{T_pM} - (d \phi_T^R)_p)} \...
Matija Sreckovic's user avatar
1 vote
0 answers
59 views

How does the knot contact homology augmentation polynomial change under a surgery on the base manifold?

So for every knot $K \in S^3$, there is a knot contact homology of $K$, and we can find the augmentation variety for this homology. The defining polynomial is known as the augmentation polynomial $A(K)...
wilsonw's user avatar
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