Related papers: An overtwisted disk in a virtual contact structure…

In this article, we investigate Reeb dynamics on $b^m$-contact manifolds, previously introduced in [MiO], which are contact away from a hypersurface $Z$ but satisfy certain transversality conditions on $Z$. The study of these contact…

We established existence of periodic Reeb orbits for a large class of tight contact structures on closed 3-manifolds, notably the Stein fillable structures, based on a fundamental theorem of Cliff Taubes on symplectic 4-manifolds.

Let M denote a compact, oriented 3-manifold and let a denote a contact 1-form on M. This article proves that the vector field that generates the kernel of the 2-form da has at least one closed, integral curve.

We consider contact foliations: objects which generalise to higher dimensions the flow of the Reeb vector field on contact manifolds. We list a number of properties of such foliations, and propose two conjectures about the topological types…

We prove that Legendrian and transverse links in overtwisted contact structures having overtwisted complements can be classified coarsely by their classical invariants. We further prove that any coarse equivalence class of loose links has…

In 1989, Y. Eliashberg proved that two overtwisted contact structures on a closed oriented 3-manifold are isotopic if and only if they are homotopic as 2-plane fields. We provide an alternative proof of this theorem using the convex surface…

In this article, we give a first prototype-definition of overtwistedness in higher dimensions. According to this definition, a contact manifold is called "overtwisted" if it contains a "plastikstufe", a submanifold foliated by the contact…

A 3-manifold is Haken if it contains a topologically essential surface. The Virtual Haken Conjecture says that every irreducible 3-manifold with infinite fundamental group has a finite cover which is Haken. Here, we discuss two interrelated…

We classify convex disks with a fixed characteristic foliation and Legendrian boundary, up to contact isotopy relative to the boundary, in every closed overtwisted contact 3-manifold. This classification covers cases where the neighborhood…

The symplectization of an overtwisted contact structure in Euclidean 3--space is shown to be an exotic symplectic structure on Euclidean 4--space. The technique can be extended to produce exotic symplectic structures in higher dimensional…

We prove that closed connected contact manifolds of dimension $\geq 5$ related by an h-cobordism with a flexible Weinstein structure become contactomorphic after some kind of stabilization. We also provide examples of non-conjugate contact…

We present a new proof of Witten's conjecture. The proof is based on the analysis of the relationship between intersection indices on moduli spaces of complex curves and Hurwitz numbers enumerating ramified coverings of the 2-sphere.

A geometric obstruction, the so called "plastikstufe", for a contact structure to not being fillable has been found by K. Niederkruger. This generalizes somehow the concept of overtwisted structure to dimensions higher than 3. This paper…

We study holomorphic spheres in certain symplectic cobordisms and derive information about periodic Reeb orbits in the concave end of these cobordisms from the non-compactness of the relevant moduli spaces. We use this to confirm the strong…

We consider the problem of realizing tight contact structures on closed orientable three-manifolds. By applying the theorems of Hofer et al., one may deduce tightness from dynamical properties of (Reeb) flows transverse to the contact…

We calculate the weak homotopy type of the group of contactomorphisms of the three-sphere which coincide with the identity on (a neighborhood of) an overtwisted disk.

We introduce a procedure for gluing Weinstein domains along Weinstein subdomains. By gluing along flexible subdomains, we show that any finite collection of high-dimensional Weinstein domains with the same topology are Weinstein subdomains…

By use of a variety of techniques (most based on constructions of quasipositive knots and links, some old and others new), many smooth 3-manifolds are realized as transverse intersections of complex surfaces in complex 3-space with strictly…

We show that a null-homologous transverse knot K in the complement of an overtwisted disk in a contact 3-manifold is the boundary of a Legendrian ribbon if and only if it possesses a Seifert surface S such that the self-linking number of K…

In this note we extend to non trivial Hamiltonian fibrations over symplectically uniruled manifolds a result of Lu's, \cite{Lu}, stating that any trivial symplectic product of two closed symplectic manifolds with one of them being…