Related papers: Classification of tight contact structures on smal…
We exhibit a 3-manifold which admits no tight contact structure.
In this paper, we study contact structures on any open 3-manifold V which is the interior of a compact 3-manifold. To do this, we introduce proper contact isotopy invariants called the slope at infinity and the division number at infinity.…
Let S^3_r(K) be the oriented 3--manifold obtained by rational r-surgery on a knot K in S^3. Using the contact Ozsvath-Szabo invariants we prove, for a class of knots K containing all the algebraic knots, that S^3_r(K) carries positive,…
We present a sketch of the proof of the following theorems: (1) Every 3-manifold has only finitely many homotopy classes of 2-plane fields which carry tight contact structures. (2) Every closed atoroidal 3-manifold carries finitely many…
We prove that if a contact 3-manifold admits an open book decomposition of genus 0, a certain intersection pattern cannot appear in the homology of any of its minimal symplectic fillings, and moreover, fillings cannot contain symplectic…
The closed 3-manifolds of constant positive curvature were classified long ago by Seifert and Threlfall. Using well-known information about the orthogonal group O(4), we calculate their full isometry groups Isom(M), determine which elliptic…
Applying our recent classification of negative-twisting tight contact structures on Seifert fibered spaces whose base orbifold is a sphere, we provide the complete list of all the Brieskorn spheres carrying at most two symplectically…
We take a first step towards understanding the relationship between foliations and universally tight contact structures on hyperbolic 3-manifolds. If a surface bundle over a circle has pseudo-Anosov holonomy, we obtain a classification of…
In this paper, we study the global behaviour of contact structures on oriented manifolds V which are circle bundles over a closed orientable surface S of genus g>0. We establish in particular contact analogs of a number of classical results…
It was proven in the first author's paper "Contact 3-manifolds twenty years since J. Martinet's work" (Ann. Inst. Fourier, 42(1992), 165--192) that any tight contact structure on the 3-sphere is diffeomorphic to the standard one. It was…
We compute the Ozsv\'ath--Szab\'o contact invariants for all tight contact structures on the manifolds -\Sigma(2,3,6n-1).
In this note we observe, answering a question of Eliashberg and Thurston, that all contact structures on a closed oriented 3-manifold are $C^\infty$-deformations of foliations.
We classify fillable contact structures on all negative-definite star-shaped plumbings. Along the way, we show that such Seifert fibred spaces admit a unique negative maximal twisting number, and compute it explicitly using the Alexander…
We study constructions of contact forms on closed manifolds. A notion of strong symplectic fold structure is defined and we prove that there is a contact form on $M \x X$ provided that $M$ admits such a structure and $X$ is contact. This…
We employ cut and paste contact topological techniques to classify some tight contact structures on the closed, oriented genus-2 surface times the interval. A boundary condition is specified so that the Euler class of the of the contact…
In this article, we find the complete list of all contact structures (up to isotopy) on closed three-manifolds which are supported by an open book decomposition having planar pages with three (but not less) boundary components. We…
We classify the real tight contact structures on solid tori up to equivariant contact isotopy and apply the results to the classification of real tight structures on $S^3$ and real lens spaces $L(p,\pm 1)$. We prove that there is a unique…
Using deformations of foliations to contact structures as well as rigidity properties of Anosov foliations we provide infinite families of examples which show that the space of taut foliations in a given homotopy class of plane fields is in…
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…
We give several criteria on a closed, oriented 3-manifold that will imply that it is the boundary of a (simply connected) 4-manifold that admits infinitely many distinct smooth structures. We also show that any weakly fillable contact…