arXiv research

A classical theorem due to Wadsley implies that, on a connected contact manifold all of whose Reeb orbits are closed, there is a common period for the Reeb orbits. In this paper we show that, for any Reeb flow on a closed connected 3-manifold, the following conditions are actually equivalent: (1) every Reeb orbit is cl…

We survey some results on the existence (and non-existence) of periodic Reeb orbits on contact manifolds, both in the open and closed case. We place these statements in the context of Finsler geometry by including a proof of the folklore theorem that the Finsler geodesic flow can be interpreted as a Reeb flow. As a mil…

The paper classifies K-contact forms on 3-manifolds and connects their orbits to spectral invariants.

The study of Reeb dynamics on contact manifolds without periodic orbits.

Study shows Reeb orbits on starshaped hypersurfaces grow logarithmically with period.

The paper adapts results for Reeb flows and Hamiltonian flows, showing all orbits are closed have identical periods.

In this paper, we prove (1): for any closed contact three-manifold with a $C^\infty$-generic contact form, the union of periodic Reeb orbits is dense, (2): for any closed surface with a $C^\infty$-generic Riemannian metric, the union of closed geodesics is dense. The key observation is $C^\infty$-closing lemma for 3D R…

We study the $J-$holomorphic curves in the symplectization of the contact manifolds and prove that there exists at least one periodic Reeb orbits in any closed contact manifold with any contact form by using the well-known Gromov's nonlinear Fredholm alternative for $J-$holomorphic curves. As a corollary, we give a com…

Let c be a periodic Reeb orbit on the boundary S of a compact star-shaped domain C in R4. We show that if there is an immersed symplectic disc f in C with boundary c then the self-linking number lk(c) of c equals 2 tan(f)-1 where tan(f) is the tangential self-intersection number of f. We also show that if C is convex a…

The study shows infinitely many Reeb orbits on star-shaped hypersurfaces with growth rate like prime numbers.

Inspired by Katok's examples of Finsler metrics with a small number of closed geodesics, we present two results on Reeb flows with finitely many periodic orbits. The first result is concerned with a contact-geometric description of magnetic flows on the 2-sphere found recently by Benedetti. We give a simple interpretat…

Study shows convex contact spheres resemble contact ellipsoids.

We give a dynamical characterisation of odd-dimensional balls within the class of all contact manifolds whose boundary is a standard even-dimensional sphere. The characterisation is in terms of the non-existence of short periodic Reeb orbits.

We prove that in dimension 3 every nondegenerate contact form is carried by a broken book decomposition. As an application we get that if M is a closed irreducible oriented 3-manifold that is not a graph manifold, for example a hyperbolic manifold, then every nondegenerate Reeb vector field on M has positive topologica…

We exhibit sufficient conditions for a finite collection of periodic orbits of a Reeb flow on a closed $3$-manifold to bound a positive global surface of section with genus zero. These conditions turn out to be $C^\infty$-generically necessary. Moreover, they involve linking assumptions on periodic orbits with Conley-Z…

New systolic inequality for 3D contact forms on Seifert bundles.

We give a sharp lower bound for the number of geometrically distinct contractible periodic orbits of dynamically convex Reeb flows on prequantizations of symplectic manifolds that are not aspherical. Several consequences of this result are obtained, like a new proof that every bumpy Finsler metric on $S^n$ carries at l…

These are notes based on a mini-course at the conference RIEMain in Contact, held in Cagliari, Sardinia, in June 2018. The main theme is the connection between Reeb dynamics and topology. Topics discussed include traps for Reeb flows, plugs for Hamiltonian flows, the Weinstein conjecture, Reeb flows with finite numbers…

Authors provide counterexamples to Weinstein conjecture in 3D.

The paper uses symplectic homology to study 3D Besse manifolds with vanishing first Chern class.

Sharp systolic inequality for invariant tight contact forms on S1-bundles over S2.

Study of intersections in Hamiltonian orbits on cotangent bundles.

The systolic ratio of a contact form $α$ on the three-sphere is the quantity \[ ρ_{\mathrm{sys}}(α) = \frac{T_{\min}(α)^2}{\mathrm{vol}(S^3,α\wedge dα)}, \] where $T_{\min}(α)$ is the minimal period of closed Reeb orbits on $(S^3,α)$. A Zoll contact form is a contact form such that all the orbits of the corresponding R…

We established existence of periodic Reeb orbits for a large class of tight contact structures on closed 3-manifolds, notably the Stein fillable structures, based on a fundamental theorem of Cliff Taubes on symplectic 4-manifolds.

Study periodic geodesics on contact 3D manifolds, proving existence and precise properties.

A long-standing conjecture in Hamiltonian Dynamics states that the Reeb flow of any convex hypersurface in $\mathbb{R}^{2n}$ carries an elliptic closed orbit. Two important contributions toward its proof were given by Ekeland in 1986 and Dell'Antonio-D'Onofrio-Ekeland in 1995 proving this for convex hypersurfaces satis…

A closed contact manifold is called Besse when all its Reeb orbits are closed, and Zoll when they have the same minimal period. In this paper, we provide a characterization of Besse contact forms for convex contact spheres and Riemannian unit tangent bundles in terms of $S^1$-equivariant spectral invariants. Furthermor…

Paper proves ellipticity of certain Reeb orbits and estimates ECH spectrum on lens spaces.

Geodesics spiral around Reeb orbits in 3D contact manifolds.

Study on knots and dynamics on three-sphere, linking bounds, and upper action bounds.

Let $Σ$ be a connected closed three-manifold, and let $t_Σ$ be the order of the torsion subgroup of $H_1(Σ;\mathbb Z)$. For a contact form $α$ on $Σ$, we denote by $\mathrm{Volume}(α)$ the contact volume of $α$, and by $T_{\min}(α)$ and $T_{\max}(α)$ the minimal period and the maximal period of prime periodic orbits of…

Given a simply connected, closed four manifold, we associate to it a simply connected, closed, spin five manifold. This leads to several consequences : the stable and unstable homotopy groups of such a four manifold is determined by its second Betti number, and the ranks of the homotopy groups can be explicitly calcula…

On every compact, orientable, irreducible 3-manifold V which is toroidal or has torus boundary components we construct a contact 1-form whose Reeb vector field R does not have any contractible periodic orbits and is tangent to the boundary. Moreover, if bdry V is nonempty, then the Reeb vector field R is transverse to …

The study constructs K-contact manifolds with minimal closed Reeb orbits and provides conditions for their homeomorphism to spheres.

If a contact form on a (2n+1)-dimensional closed contact manifold admits closed Reeb orbits, then its systolic ration is defined to be the quotient of (n+1)th power of the shortest period of Reeb orbits by the contact volume. We prove that every co-orientable contact structure on any closed contact manifold admits a co…

Proves existence of elliptic Reeb orbit on real projective 3-space using ECH.

We determine parts of the contact homology of certain contact 3-manifolds in the framework of open book decompositions, due to Giroux. We study two cases: when the monodromy map of the compatible open book is periodic and when it is pseudo-Anosov. For an open book with periodic monodromy, we verify the Weinstein conjec…

The study proves properties of spectral selectors for contact manifolds and applies them to contact big fibers and geodesics.

The first two authors showed in~\cite{AM1} how the Conley-Zehnder index of any contractible periodic Reeb orbit of a non-degenerate toric contact form on a good toric contact manifold with zero first Chern class, i.e. a Gorenstein toric contact manifold, can be explicitly computed using moment map data. In this paper w…

Let $M$ be a three-dimensional contact manifold and $ψ:D\setminus\{0\}\to M\times{\Bbb R}$ a finite-energy pseudoholomorphic map from a punctured disc in ${\Bbb C}$, that is asymptotic to a periodic orbit of the Reeb vector field. This article examines conditions under which smooth coordinates may be defined in a tubul…

New flow category for contact manifolds from Reeb orbits.

Let $α$ be a contact form on a connected closed three-manifold $Σ$. The systolic ratio of $α$ is defined as $ρ_{\mathrm{sys}}(α):=\tfrac{1}{\mathrm{Vol}(α)}T_{\min}(α)^2$, where $T_{\min}(α)$ and $\mathrm{Vol}(α)$ denote the minimal period of periodic Reeb orbits and the contact volume. The form $α$ is said to be Zoll …

We investigate the equivariant cohomology of the natural torus action on a K-contact manifold and its relation to the topology of the Reeb flow. Using the contact moment map, we show that the equivariant cohomology of this action is Cohen-Macaulay, which is a generalization of equivariant formality for torus actions wi…

We use the equivalence between embedded contact homology and Seiberg-Witten Floer homology to obtain the following improvements on the Weinstein conjecture. Let Y be a closed oriented connected 3-manifold with a stable Hamiltonian structure, and let R denote the associated Reeb vector field on Y. We prove that if Y is …

The systolic ratio of a contact form on a closed three-manifold is the quotient of the square of the shortest period of closed Reeb orbits by the contact volume. We show that every co-orientable contact structure on any closed three-manifold is defined by a contact form with arbitrarily large systolic ratio. This shows…

The abstract proves that certain Reeb vector fields on 3-manifolds have Birkhoff sections.

The Weinstein conjecture, as the general existence problem for periodic orbits of Hamiltonian or Reeb flows, has been among the central questions in symplectic topology for over two decades and its investigation has led to understanding of some fundamental properties of Hamiltonian flows. In this paper we survey some r…

We prove that every non-degenerate Reeb flow on a closed contact manifold $M$ admitting a strong symplectic filling $W$ with vanishing first Chern class carries at least two geometrically distinct closed orbits provided that the positive equivariant symplectic homology of $W$ satisfies a mild condition. Under further a…