Related papers: A contact version of Kirby's theorem

The paper deals with topologically trivial Legendrian knots in tight and overtwisted contact 3-manifolds. The first part contains a thorough exposition of the proof of the classification of topologically trivial Legendrian knots (i.e.…

Assume that M is a compact n-dimensional manifold and that N is obtained by surgery along a k-dimensional sphere, k\le n-3. The smooth Yamabe invariants \sigma(M) and \sigma(N) satisfy \sigma(N)\ge min (\sigma(M),\Lambda) for \Lambda>0. We…

We construct what we call a Kirby category, a monoidal category whose morphisms are smooth 4-manifolds, projecting down to another monoidal category whose morphisms are orientable 3-manifolds, the projection being induced by the boundary…

This note explains how to relate some contact geometric operations, such as surgery, to operations on an underlying contact open book. In particular, we shall give a simple proof of the fact that stabilizations of contact open books yield…

Given a simply-connected closed 4-manifold $X$ and a smoothly embedded oriented surface $\Sigma$, various constructions based on Fintushel-Stern knot surgery have produced new surfaces in $X$ that are pairwise homeomorphic to $\Sigma$, but…

Any irreducible Dynkin diagram $\Delta$ is obtained from an irreducible Dynkin diagram $\Delta_h$ of type $\mathrm{ADE}$ by folding via graph automorphisms. For any simple complex Lie group $G$ with Dynkin diagram $\Delta$ and compact…

This paper begins the study of relations between Riemannian geometry and global properties of contact structures on 3-manifolds. In particular we prove an analog of the sphere theorem from Riemannian geometry in the setting of contact…

Consider a holomorphic contact manifold. Holomorphic discs tangent to the contact planes define a pseudometric on the manifold. This pseudometric integrates to a pseudodistance. When the pseudodistance is a distance, we call the contact…

Atiyah's formulation of what is nowadays called the convexity theorem of Atiyah-Guillemin-Sternberg has two parts: (a) the image of the moment map arising from a Hamiltonian action of a torus on a symplectic manifold is a convex polytope,…

The classical Seifert algorithm provides an explicit construction of a Seifert surface for any link in $S^3$. Alegria and Menasco extended this construction to integral homology $3$-spheres using Heegaard splittings. In this paper, we…

Given a closed contact 3-manifold with a compatible Riemannian metric, we show that if the sectional curvature is 1/4-pinched, then the contact structure is universally tight. This result improves the Contact Sphere Theorem in [EKM12],…

This paper introduces techniques for computing a variety of numerical invariants associated to a Legendrian knot in a contact manifold presented by an open book with a Morse structure. Such a Legendrian knot admits a front projection to the…

In recent times a great amount of progress has been achieved in symplectic and contact geometry, leading to the development of powerful invariants of 3-manifolds such as Heegaard Floer homology and embedded contact homology. These…

A regular contact manifold is a manifold $M$ equipped with a globally defined contact form $\eta$ such that the topological space $M/\mathcal{R}$ of orbits (trajectories) of the Reeb vector field $\mathcal{R}$ of $\eta$ carries a smooth…

Given a transverse link in the standard contact 3-sphere, we study the contact manifold that arises as a branched double cover of the sphere. We give a contact surgery description of such manifolds, which allows to determine the Heegaard…

By recent results of Baker--Etnyre--Van Horn-Morris, a rational open book decomposition defines a compatible contact structure. We show that the Heegaard Floer contact invariant of such a contact structure can be computed in terms of the…

Distinct knots K, K' can sometimes share a common p/q-framed Dehn surgery. A folk conjecture held that for a fixed pair of knots, this can occur for at most one value of p/q. We disprove this conjecture by constructing pairs of distinct…

We construct an enhanced version of knot contact homology, and show that we can deduce from it the group ring of the knot group together with the peripheral subgroup. In particular, it completely determines a knot up to smooth isotopy. The…

We lay the foundations of convex hypersurface theory in contact topology, extending the work of Giroux in dimension three. Specifically, we prove that any closed hypersurface in a contact manifold can be $C^0$-approximated by a convex one.…

Two of the basic questions in contact topology are which manifolds admit tight contact structures, and on those that do, can we classify such structures. We present the first such classification on an infinite family of (mostly) hyperbolic…