English

Legendrian and transverse twist knots

Symplectic Geometry 2013-05-08 v3 Geometric Topology

Abstract

In 1997, Chekanov gave the first example of a Legendrian nonsimple knot type: the m(52)m(5_2) knot. Epstein, Fuchs, and Meyer extended his result by showing that there are at least nn different Legendrian representatives with maximal Thurston--Bennequin number of the twist knot K2nK_{-2n} with crossing number 2n+12n+1. In this paper we give a complete classification of Legendrian and transverse representatives of twist knots. In particular, we show that K2nK_{-2n} has exactly n22\lceil\frac{n^2}2\rceil Legendrian representatives with maximal Thurston--Bennequin number, and n2\lceil\frac{n}{2}\rceil transverse representatives with maximal self-linking number. Our techniques include convex surface theory, Legendrian ruling invariants, and Heegaard Floer homology.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1002.2400,
  title  = {Legendrian and transverse twist knots},
  author = {John B. Etnyre and Lenhard L. Ng and Vera Vertesi},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1002.2400},
  year   = {2013}
}

Comments

27 pages, v3: added figure, other minor changes, to appear in JEMS

R2 v1 2026-06-21T14:46:08.983Z