English

On contact type hypersurfaces in 4-space

Geometric Topology 2026-05-14 v3 Complex Variables Symplectic Geometry

Abstract

We consider constraints on the topology of closed 3-manifolds that can arise as hypersurfaces of contact type in standard symplectic R4R^4. Using an obstruction derived from Heegaard Floer homology we prove that no Brieskorn homology sphere admits a contact type embedding in R4R^4, a result that has bearing on conjectures of Gompf and Koll\'ar. This implies in particular that no rationally convex domain in C2C^2 has boundary diffeomorphic to a Brieskorn sphere. We also give infinitely many examples of contact 3-manifolds that bound Stein domains but not symplectically convex ones; in particular we find Stein domains in C2C^2 that cannot be made Weinstein with respect to the ambient symplectic structure while preserving the contact structure on their boundaries.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2008.02755,
  title  = {On contact type hypersurfaces in 4-space},
  author = {Thomas E. Mark and Bülent Tosun},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2008.02755},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

Corrects an error in Proposition 4.5, pointed out to the authors by Sarah Zampa. That proposition is corrected, and the proof of Theorem 4.6 is adapted accordingly. All main results are unchanged

R2 v1 2026-06-23T17:41:13.391Z