Bi-invariant metrics on contactomorphism groups
Abstract
Contact manifolds are odd-dimensional smooth manifolds endowed with a maximally non-integrable field of hyperplanes. They are intimately related to symplectic manifolds, i.e. even-dimensional smooth manifolds endowed with a closed non-degenerate 2-form. Although in symplectic topology a famous bi-invariant metric, the Hofer metric, has been studied since more than 20 years ago, it is only recently that some somehow analogous bi-invariant metrics have been discovered on the group of diffeomorphisms that preserve a contact structure. In this expository article I will review some constructions of bi-invariant metrics on the contactomorphism group, and how these metrics are related to some other global rigidity phenomena in contact topology which have been discovered in the last few years, in particular the notion of orderability (due to Eliashberg and Polterovich) and an analogue in contact topology (due to Eliashberg, Kim and Poltorovich) of Gromov's symplectic non-squeezing theorem.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1511.07006,
title = {Bi-invariant metrics on contactomorphism groups},
author = {Sheila Sandon},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1511.07006},
year = {2015}
}
Comments
Expository article, written in occasion of the 5-th IST-IME meeting in S\~ao Paulo (July 2014) in honor of Prof. Orlando Lopes. To appear in the S\~ao Paulo Journal of Mathematical Sciences