Related papers: Recent progress on symplectic embedding problems i…

An embedding $\varphi \colon (M_1, \omega_1) \to (M_2, \omega_2)$ (of symplectic manifolds of the same dimension) is called $\epsilon$-symplectic if the difference $\varphi^* \omega_2 - \omega_1$ is $\epsilon$-small with respect to a fixed…

We construct four-dimensional symplectic cobordisms between contact three-manifolds generalizing an example of Eliashberg. One key feature is that any handlebody decomposition of one of these cobordisms must involve three-handles. The other…

Symplectic capacities are invariants in symplectic geometry that are used to obstruct symplectic embeddings. From a certain symplectic capacity, the Ekeland-Hofer-Zehnder capacity, one can construct the systolic ratio, which measures the…

I prove that the open unit cube can be symplectically embedded into a longer polydisc in such a way that the area of each section satisfies a sharp bound and the complement of each section is path-connected. This answers a variant of a…

We use explicit pseudoholomorphic curve techniques (without virtual perturbations) to define a sequence of symplectic capacities analogous to those defined recently by the second named author using symplectic field theory. We then compute…

It is shown that any smooth closed orientable manifold of dimension $2k + 1$, $k \geq 2$, admits a smooth polynomially convex embedding into $\mathbb C^{3k}$. This improves by $1$ the previously known lower bound of $3k+1$ on the possible…

Let $X$ be any rational ruled symplectic four-manifold. Given a symplectic embedding $\iota:B_{c}\into X$ of the standard ball of capacity $c$ into $X$, consider the corresponding symplectic blow-up $\tX_{\iota}$. In this paper, we study…

We solve the stabilized symplectic embedding problem for four-dimensional ellipsoids into the four-dimensional round ball. The answer is neatly encoded by a piecewise smooth function which exhibits a phase transition from an infinite…

After reviewing recent results on symplectic Lefschetz pencils and symplectic branched covers of CP^2, we describe a new construction of maps from symplectic manifolds of any dimension to CP^2 and the associated monodromy invariants. We…

In this article we study proper symplectic and iso-symplectic embeddings of $4$--manifolds in $6$--manifolds. We show that a closed orientable smooth $4$--manifold admitting a Lefschetz fibration over $\C P^1$ admits a symplectic embedding…

We investigate the notion of symplectic divisorial compactification for symplectic 4-manifolds with either convex or concave type boundary. This is motivated by the notion of compactifying divisors for open algebraic surfaces. We give a…

ECH capacities are rich obstructions to symplectic embeddings in 4-dimensions that have also been seen to arise in the context of algebraic positivity for (possibly singular) projective surfaces. We extend this connection to relate general…

We prove that an m-dimensional unit ball D^m in the Euclidean space {\mathbb R}^m cannot be isometrically embedded into a higher-dimensional Euclidean ball B_r^d \subset {\mathbb R}^d of radius r < 1/2 unless one of two conditions is met --…

For contact manifolds in dimension three, the notions of weak and strong symplectic fillability and tightness are all known to be inequivalent. We extend these facts to higher dimensions: in particular, we define a natural generalization of…

We show that any closed oriented 3-manifold can be topologically embedded in some simply-connected closed symplectic 4-manifold, and that it can be made a smooth embedding after one stabilization. As a corollary of the proof we show that…

A finite volume symplectic manifold is said to have "packing stability" if the only obstruction to symplectically embedding sufficiently small balls is the volume obstruction. Packing stability has been shown in a variety of cases and it…

This paper addresses several isotopy problems on $4$-manifolds. First, we classify the isotopy classes of embeddings of $\Sigma$ in $\Sigma\times S^2$ that are geometrically dual to $\{\mbox{pt}\}\times S^2$, where $\Sigma$ is a closed…

In this paper we present some quantitative results concerning symplectic barriers. In particular, we answer a question raised by Sackel, Song, Varolgunes, and Zhu regarding the symplectic size of the $2n$-dimensional Euclidean ball with a…

We prove in this paper that any 4-dimensional symplectic manifold is essentially made of finitely many symplectic ellipsoids. The key tool is a singular analogue of Donaldson's symplectic hypersurfaces in irrational symplectic manifolds.

The shape invariant of a symplectic manifold encodes the possible area classes of embedded Lagrangian tori. Potentially this is a powerful invariant, but for most manifolds the shape is unknown. We compute the shape for 4 dimensional…