Related papers: Algebraically overtwisted tight $3$-manifolds from…

A real 3-manifold is a smooth 3-manifold together with an orientation preserving smooth involution, which is called a real structure. A real contact 3-manifold is a real 3-manifold with a contact distribution that is antisymmetric with…

We construct examples in any odd dimension of contact manifolds with finite and non-zero algebraic torsion (in the sense of Latschev-Wendl), which are therefore tight and do not admit strong symplectic fillings. We prove that Giroux torsion…

We determine the adjoint Reidemeister torsion of a $3$-manifold obtained by some Dehn surgery along $K$, where $K$ is either the figure-eight knot or the $5_2$-knot. As in a vanishing conjecture, we consider a similar conjecture and show…

We demonstrate that the functorial properties of the symplectic field theory under strong cobordisms and surgery cobordisms can produce finite algebraic (planar) torsions from simple examples, which gives a unified treatment of most of the…

For the purposes of this paper, Dehn surgery along a curve K in a 3-manifold M with slope r is `exceptional' if the resulting 3-manifold M_K(r) is reducible or a solid torus, or the core of the surgery solid torus has finite order in the…

Recently, Hodgson and Kerckhoff found a small bound on Dehn surgered 3-manifolds from hyperbolic knots not admitting hyperbolic structures using deformations of hyperbolic cone-manifolds. They asked whether the area normalized meridian…

We show that an oriented elliptic 3-manifold admits a universally tight positive contact structure iff the corresponding group of deck transformations on $S^3$ preserves a standard contact structure pointwise. We also relate univerally…

We classify Legendrian unknots in overtwisted contact structures on $S^3$. In particular, we show that up to contact isotopy for every pair $(n,\pm(n-1))$ with $n>0$ there are exactly two oriented non-loose Legendrian unknots in $S^3$ with…

We prove that every Legendrian knot in the tight contact structure of the 3-sphere is determined by the contactomorphism type of its exterior. Moreover, by giving counterexamples we show this to be not true for Legendrian links in the tight…

We study cosmetic contact surgeries along transverse knots in the standard contact 3-sphere, i.e. contact surgeries that yield again the standard contact 3-sphere. The main result is that we can exclude non-trivial cosmetic contact…

We study the effect of surgery on transverse knots in contact 3-manifolds. In particular, we investigate the effect of such surgery on open books, the Heegaard Floer contact invariant, and tightness. The overarching theme of this paper is…

We give a method for constructing a Legendrian representative of a knot in $S^3$ which realizes its maximal Thurston-Bennequin number under a certain condition. The method utilizes Stein handle decompositions of $D^4$, and the resulting…

Suppose $K$ is a knot in a 3-manifold $Y$, and that $Y$ admits a pair of distinct contact structures. Assume that $K$ has Legendrian representatives in each of these contact structures, such that the corresponding Thurston-Bennequin…

All knots in $R^3$ possess Seifert surfaces, and so the classical Thurston-Bennequin and rotation (or Maslov) invariants for Legendrian knots in a contact structure on $R^3$ can be defined. The definitions extend easily to null-homologous…

We prove that the Witten-Reshetikhin-Turaev (WRT) SO(3) invariant of an arbitrary 3-manifold M is always an algebraic integer. Moreover, we give a rational surgery formula for the unified invariant dominating WRT SO(3) invariants of…

We introduce the notion of contact round surgery of index $1$ on Legendrian knots in a general contact 3-manifold. It generalizes the notion of contact round surgery of index 1 on Legendrian knots introduced by Adachi. In…

A theorem of Ding and Geiges states that every closed, connected contact $3$-manifold can be obtained from the standard tight contact $3$-sphere by contact $(\pm1)$-surgery along a Legendrian link. The literature also contains some examples…

We show that all positive contact surgeries on every Legendrian figure-eight knot in $(S^3, \xi_{\rm{std}})$ result in an overtwisted contact structure. The proof uses convex surface theory and invariants from Heegaard Floer homology.

Let p and n be positive integers with p>1, and let E(p,n) be the oriented 3-manifold obtained by performing pn(p-1)-1 surgery on a positive torus knot of type (p, pn+1). We prove that E(2,n) does not carry tight contact structures for any…

Topological surgery in dimension $3$ is intrinsically connected with the classification of $3$-manifolds and with patterns of natural phenomena. In this expository paper, we present two different approaches for understanding and visualizing…