arXiv research

Contact group retracts to unitary subgroup.

The group of volume preserving diffeomorphisms, the group of symplectomorphisms and the group of contactomorphisms constitute the classical groups of diffeomorphisms. The first homology groups of the compactly supported identity components of the first two groups have been computed by Thurston and Banyaga, respectively…

For a stratified group $G$, we construct a class of polarised Lie groups, which we call modifications of $G$, that are locally contactomorphic to it. Vice versa, we show that if a polarised group is locally contactomorphic to a stratified group $G$, whose Lie algebra has finite Tanaka prolongation, then it must be a mo…

In this paper we study the groups of contactomorphisms of a closed contact manifold from a topological viewpoint. First we construct examples of contact forms on spheres whose Reeb flow has a dense orbit. Then we show that the unitary group U(n+1) is homotopically essential in the group of contactomorphisms of the stan…

Geodesics of contactomorphisms on a specific manifold are characterized by Hamiltonian functions.

In his 1992 article on generating functions Viterbo constructed a bi-invariant metric on the group of compactly supported Hamiltonian symplectomorphisms of R^2n. Using the set-up of arXiv:0901.3112 we extend the Viterbo metric to the group of compactly supported contactomorphisms of R^2n x S^1 isotopic to the identity.…

H. Sato introduced a Schwarzian derivative of a contactomorphism of three-dimensional Euclidean space and with T. Ozawa described its basic properties. In this note their construction is extended to all odd dimensions and to non-flat contact projective structures. The contact projective Schwarzian derivative of a conta…

A right-invariant metric $ρ_α$ on the compactly supported identity component $Cont_0(M,α)$ of the group of contactomorphisms of an arbitrary contact manifold $(M,α)$ is introduced in a similar way that the Hofer metric was defined on the group of Hamiltonian symplectomorphisms of a symplectic manifold. The restriction …

We calculate the weak homotopy type of the group of contactomorphisms of the three-sphere which coincide with the identity on (a neighborhood of) an overtwisted disk.

Defines spectral selectors on lens spaces for contactomorphisms.

Defines Lorentzian distance on contactomorphisms, proving continuity and finite conditions.

Simple groups identified for contactomorphisms with high regularity.

In a recent preprint Yael Karshon showed that there exist non-conjugate tori in a group of symplectomorphisms of a Hirzebruch surface. She counted them in terms of the cohomology class of the symplectic structure. We show that a similar phenomenon exists in the contactomorphism groups of pre-quantum circle bundles over…

Study the topology of loops of contactomorphisms and Legendrians in non-orderable manifolds.

In this paper, we prove that on any contact manifold, there exists an arbitrary C^{\infty}-small contactomorphism which does not admit a square root. In particular, there exists an arbitrary C^{\infty}-small contactomorphism which is not "autonomous". This result is the first step to study the topology of non-autonomou…

By a theorem of Banyaga the group of diffeomorphisms of a manifold $P$ preserving a regular contact form $α$ is a central $S^1$ extension of the commutator of the group of symplectomorphisms of the base $B = P/S^1$. We show that if $T$ is a Hamiltonian maximal torus in the group of symplectomorphism of $B$, then its pr…

We prove, for a class of contact manifolds, that the universal cover of the group of contact diffeomorphisms carries a natural partial order. It leads to a new viewpoint on geometry and dynamics of contactomorphisms. It gives rise to invariants of contactomorphisms which generalize the classical notion of the rotation …

I describe a general scheme which associates conjugacy classes of tori in the contactomorphism group to transverse almost complex structures on a compact contact manifold. Moreover, to tori of Reeb type whose Lie algebra contains a Reeb vector field one can associate a Sasaki cone. Thus, for contact structures of K-con…

Here we investigate some geometric properties of the contactomorphism group $\mathcal{D}_θ(M)$ of a compact contact manifold with the $L^2$ metric on the stream functions. Viewing this group as a generalization to the $\mathcal{D}(S^1)$, the diffeomorphism group of the circle, we show that its sectional curvature is al…

In this paper we examine the Riemannian geometry of the group of contactomorphisms of a compact contact manifold. We compute the sectional curvature of $\mathcal{D}_θ(M)$ in the sections containing the Reeb field and show that it is non-negative. We also solve explicitly the Jacobi equation along the geodesic correspon…

Study shows how to section map between holonomic and formal solutions.

New contactomorphisms found via Dehn twists on 3-manifold sums.

We describe a contact analog of the symplectic cut construction. As an application we show that the group of contactomorphisms for a particular overtwisted contact structure on the three sphere contains countably many nonconjugate two tori.

New examples show transverse knots are determined by their branched covers.

Study connects contact structures to cone geodesics and contactomorphisms.

We give examples of contactomorphisms in every dimension that are smoothly isotopic to the identity but that are not contact isotopic to the identity. In fact, we prove the stronger statement that they are not even symplectically pseudo-isotopic to the identity. We also give examples of pairs of contactomorphisms which…

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 …

We study in this paper the remnants of the contact partial order on the orbits of the adjoint action of contactomorphism groups on their Lie algebras. Our main interest is a class of non-compact contact manifolds, called convex at infinity.

Classifies semisimple symmetric contact spaces under Lie groups.

We generalise a result of Garofalo and Pauls: a horizontally minimal smooth surface embedded in the Heisenberg group is locally a (straight) ruled surface, i.e. it consists of straight lines tangent to a horizontal vector field along a smooth curve. We show additionally that any horizontally minimal surface is locally …

A point q in a contact manifold is called a translated point for a contactomorphism φ, with respect to some fixed contact form, if φ(q) and q belong to the same Reeb orbit and the contact form is preserved at q. In this article we discuss a version of the Arnold conjecture for translated points of contactomorphisms and…

Given a manifold $M$ endowed with a contact 1-form $α$, a bi-invariant pseudo-metric $\varrho_α$ is introduced on $Cont(M,α)$, the compactly supported identity component of the group of all strict contactomorphisms of $(M,α)$. For $M$ open $\varrho_α$ is a metric.

We study the singularities of Legendrian subvarieties of contact manifolds in the complex-analytic category and prove two rigidity results. The first one is that Legendrian singularities with reduced tangent cones are contactomorphically biholomorphic to their tangent cones. This result is partly motivated by a problem…

Contact reductions explained through symplectic reductions.

New contact Kirby moves complete the set for contact surgery diagrams.

We prove that on closed Riemannian manifolds with infinite abelian, but not cyclic, fundamental group, any isometry that is homotopic to the identity possesses infinitely many invariant geodesics. We conjecture that the result remains true if the fundamental group is infinite cyclic. We also formulate a generalization …

In this article we consider a variant of Rabinowitz Floer homology in order to define a homological count of discriminant points for paths of contactomorphisms. The growth rate of this count can be seen as an analogue of Givental's nonlinear Maslov index. As an application we prove a Bott-Samelson type obstruction theo…

New distances defined on Legendrian spaces without positive loops.

Clarifies properties of Ozsvath-Szabo contact invariant.

We explain a connection between the algebraic and geometric properties of groups of contact transformations, open book decompositions, and flexible Legendrian embeddings. The main result is that, if a closed contact manifold $(V, ξ)$ has a supporting open book whose pages are flexible Weinstein manifolds, then the conn…

The affine-additive group is hyperbolic with a non-vanishing 4-capacity.

Introduces GFC for learning complex dynamical systems with geometric constraints.

Study confirms contact cosmetic surgery for most knots, with exceptions.

Extending a result of He to the non-integrable case of K-contact manifolds, it is shown that transverse Hermitian scalar curvature may be interpreted as a moment map for the strict contactomorphism group. As a consequence, we may generalize the Sasaki-Futaki invariant to K-contact geometry and establish a number of ele…

Computes homotopy types of embedding spaces in tight contact 3-manifolds.

Contact squeezing prevented in certain prequantized balls via generating functions.

A point q in a contact manifold is called a translated point for a contactomorphism φ, with respect to some fixed contact form, if φ(q) and q belong to the same Reeb orbit and the contact form is preserved at q. The problem of existence of translated points is related to the chord conjecture and to the problem of leafw…

The paper proves Morse estimates for translated points on unit tangent bundles.