Related papers: $E_8$-plumbings and exotic contact structures on s…

We show that any closed connected hypersurface in $\mathbb{R}^4$ with entropy less than or equal to that of the round cylinder is smoothly isotopic to the standard three-sphere.

This article sketches various ideas in contact geometry that have become useful in low-dimensional topology. Specifically we (1) outline the proof of Eliashberg and Thurston's results concerning perturbations of foliatoins into contact…

We examine functorial and homotopy properties of the exotic characteristic homomorphism in the category of Lie algebroids which was lastly obtained by the authors in [4]. This homomorphism depends on a triple (A,B,$\nabla$) where B…

In this paper, sufficient conditions for contact $(+1)$-surgeries along Legendrian knots in contact rational homology 3-spheres to have vanishing contact invariants or to be overtwisted are given. They can be applied to study contact…

Strange duality is shown to hold over generic $K3$ surfaces in a large number of cases. The isomorphism for elliptic $K3$ surfaces is established first via Fourier-Mukai techniques. Applications to Brill-Noether theory for sheaves on $K3$s…

We classify Legendrian torus knots and figure eight knots in the tight contact structure on the 3-sphere up to Legendrian isotopy. As a corollary to this we also obtain the classification of transversal torus knots and figure eight knots up…

We show that for an arbitrarily given closed Riemannian manifold $M$ admitting a point $p \in M$ with a single cut point, every closed Riemannian manifold $N$ admitting a point $q \in N$ with a single cut point is diffeomorphic to $M$ if…

In this short note, we exhibit an infinite family of hyperbolic rational homology $3$--spheres which do not admit any fillable contact structures. We also note that most of these manifolds do admit tight contact structures.

Using contact homology, we reobtain some recent results of Geiges and Gonzalo about the fundamental group of the space of contact structures on some 3-manifolds. We show that our techniques can be used to study higher dimensional contact…

In this article we classify up to isotopy tight contact structures on Seifert manifolds over the torus with one singular fibre.

The essential role played by differentiable structures in physics is reviewed in light of recent mathematical discoveries that topologically trivial space-time models, especially the simplest one, ${\bf R^4}$, possess a rich multiplicity of…

In this article we introduce and analyze in detail singular contact structures, with an emphasis on $b^m$-contact structures, which are tangent to a given smooth hypersurface $Z$ and satisfy certain transversality conditions. These singular…

For a closed connected manifold N, we establish the existence of geometric structures on various subgroups of the contactomorphism group of the standard contact jet space J^1N, as well as on the group of contactomorphisms of the standard…

In an earlier work, we proposed a generalization for the Apollonian packing in arbitrary dimensions and showed that the resulting object in four, five, and six dimensions have properties consistent with the Apollonian circle and sphere…

The main theme of this paper is the dynamics of Reeb flows with symmetries on the standard contact sphere. We introduce the notion of strong dynamical convexity for contact forms invariant under a group action, supporting the standard…

The theory of $G$-structures provides us with a unified framework for a large class of geometric structures, including symplectic, complex and Riemannian structures, as well as foliations and many others. Surprisingly, contact geometry -…

It is known that the lens space $L(2n,1)$ supports a virtually overtwisted contact structure arising as the boundary of the Milnor fiber of a complex hypersurface singularity. In this article we study the problem of realizing other…

We construct a simple topological invariant of certain 3-manifolds, including quotients of the 3-sphere by finite groups, based on the fact that the tangent bundle of an orientable 3-manifold is trivialisable. This invariant is strong…

We construct two-dimensional families of complex hyperbolic structures on disc orbibundles over the sphere with three cone points. This contrasts with the previously known examples of the same type, which are locally rigid. In particular,…

Using recent work on high dimensional Lutz twists and families of Weinstein structures we show that any almost contact structure on a 5-manifold is homotopic to a contact structure.