English

Invariants of Legendrian knots from open book decompositions

Geometric Topology 2009-11-14 v2 Symplectic Geometry

Abstract

In this note, we define a new invariant of a Legendrian knot in a contact manifold using an open book decomposition supporting the contact structure. We define the support genus sg(L) of a Legendrian knot L in a contact 3-manifold (M, \xi) as the minimal genus of a page of an open book of M supporting the contact structure \xi such that L sits on a page and the framing given by the contact structure and by the page agree. We show any null-homologous loose knot in an overtwisted contact structure has support genus zero. To prove this, we observe any topological knot or link in any 3-manifold M sits on a page of a planar open book decomposition of M.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.0905.2238,
  title  = {Invariants of Legendrian knots from open book decompositions},
  author = {Sinem Celik Onaran},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0905.2238},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

20 pages, 20 figures, proof of Lemma 2.1 added, minor corrections and clarifications