English

Contact non-squeezing at large scale via generating functions

Symplectic Geometry 2025-04-16 v2 Geometric Topology

Abstract

Using SFT techniques, Eliashberg, Kim and Polterovich (2006) proved that if πR22KπR12\pi R_2^2 \leq K \leq \pi R_1^2 for some integer KK then there is no contact squeezing in R2n×S1\mathbb{R}^{2n} \times S^1 of the prequantization of the ball of radius R1R_1 into the prequantization of the ball of radius R2R_2. This result was extended to the case of balls of radius R1R_1 and R2R_2 with 1πR22πR121 \leq \pi R_2^2 \leq \pi R_1^2 by Chiu (2017) and the first author (2016), using respectively microlocal sheaves and SFT. In the present article we recover this general contact non-squeezing theorem using generating functions, a classical method based on finite dimensional Morse theory. More precisely, we develop an equivariant version, with respect to a certain action of a finite cyclic group, of the generating function homology for domains of R2n×S1\mathbb{R}^{2n} \times S^1 defined by the second author (2011). A key role in the construction is played by translated chains of contactomorphisms, a generalization of translated points.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2310.11993,
  title  = {Contact non-squeezing at large scale via generating functions},
  author = {Maia Fraser and Sheila Sandon and Bingyu Zhang},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2310.11993},
  year   = {2025}
}

Comments

42 pages. Revised version, to appear in the Journal of Fixed Point Theory and Applications

R2 v1 2026-06-28T12:54:26.083Z