English

Great circle fibrations and contact structures on the 3-sphere

Differential Geometry 2018-02-13 v1 Algebraic Topology Geometric Topology Symplectic Geometry

Abstract

Given any smooth fibration of the unit 3-sphere by great circles, we show that the distribution of 2-planes orthogonal to the great circle fibres is a tight contact structure, a fact well known in the special case of the Hopf fibrations. The proof expresses hypothesis and conclusion as differential inequalities involving functions on disks transverse to the fibres, and shows that one inequality implies the other.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1802.03797,
  title  = {Great circle fibrations and contact structures on the 3-sphere},
  author = {Herman Gluck},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1802.03797},
  year   = {2018}
}

Comments

19 pages, 5 figures, Differential Geometry, Contact Geometry, Manifolds and Cell Complexes

R2 v1 2026-06-23T00:18:30.655Z