arXiv research

We use Menke's JSJ-type decomposition theorem for symplectic fillings to reduce the classification of strong and exact symplectic fillings of virtually overtwisted torus bundles to the same problem for tight lens spaces. For virtually overtwisted structures on elliptic or parabolic torus bundles, this gives a complete …

In this article we give a sharp upper bound on the possible values of the Euler characteristic for a minimal symplectic filling of a tight contact structure on a lens space. This estimate is obtained by looking at the topology of the spaces involved, extending this way what we already knew from the universally tight ca…

We study a coverings of open books and virtually overtwisted contact manifolds using open book foliations. We show that open book coverings produces interesting examples such as transverse knots with depth grater than 1. We also demonstrate explicit examples of virtually overtwisted open books.

Study symplectic fillings of lens spaces, focusing on virtually overtwisted contact structures.

It is known that the lens space $L(2n,1)$ supports a virtually overtwisted contact structure arising as the boundary of the Milnor fiber of a complex hypersurface singularity. In this article we study the problem of realizing other $(L(p,q),ξ)$ in such a way, obtaining a series of necessary conditions for this to happe…

Classifies tight contact structures on surgeries of the Whitehead link.

We introduce twist left-veering mapping classes of punctured surfaces. We prove that a twist left-veering open book supports an overtwisted contact structure and determine when the closed braid coming from the punctures is loose or virtually loose.

We study fillings of contact structures supported by planar open books by analyzing positive factorizations of their monodromy. Our method is based on Wendl's theorem on symplectic fillings of planar open books. We prove that every virtually overtwisted contact structure on L(p,1) has a unique filling, and describe fil…

We prove that an infinite family of virtually overtwisted tight contact structures discovered by Honda on certain circle bundles over surfaces admit no symplectic semi-fillings. The argument uses results of Mrowka, Ozsvath and Yu on the translation-invariant solutions to the Seiberg-Witten equations on cylinders and th…

Proves existence of strongly overtwisted contact structures on 3-manifolds.

Authors prove a contact structure result using branched covers and overtwisted disks.

We introduce a modification procedure for Engel structures that is reminiscent of the Lutz twist in 3-dimensional Contact Topology. This notion allows us to define what an Engel overtwisted disc is, and to prove a complete h-principle for overtwisted Engel structures with fixed overtwisted disc.

The study finds algebraically overtwisted tight 3-manifolds via contact surgeries.

The paper classifies symplectic fillings of lens spaces and constructs cobordisms.

We study open books on three manifolds which are compatible with an overtwisted contact structure. We show that the existence of certain arcs, called sobering arcs, is a sufficient condition for an open book to be overtwisted, and is necessary up to stabilization by positive Hopf-bands. Using these techniques we prove …

We give an alternative proof of a theorem of Honda-Kazez-Matić that every non-right-veering open book supports an overtwisted contact structure. We also study two types of examples that show how overtwisted discs are embedded relative to right-veering open books.

We define the notion of a knot type having Legendrian large cables and show that having this property implies that the knot type is not uniformly thick. Moreover, there are solid tori in this knot type that do not thicken to a solid torus with integer sloped boundary torus, and that exhibit new phenomena; specifically,…

We classify Legendrian unknots in overtwisted contact structures on $S^3$. In particular, we show that up to contact isotopy for every pair $(n,\pm(n-1))$ with $n>0$ there are exactly two oriented non-loose Legendrian unknots in $S^3$ with Thurston-Bennequin invariant $n$ and rotation number $\pm(n-1)$. (Only one overt…

Study links in contact manifolds using open books and overtwisted disks.

We prove that each overtwisted contact structure has knot types that are represented by infinitely many distinct transverse knots all with the same self-linking number. In some cases, we can even classify all such knots. We also show similar results for Legendrian knots and prove a "folk" result concerning loose transv…

Classifies convex disks with Legendrian boundary in overtwisted contact 3-manifolds.

Discusses the tight versus overtwisted dichotomy in 3D contact geometry.

Real algebraic structures help classify overtwisted contact 3-spheres.

In this paper, we study strong symplectic fillability and Stein fillability of some tight contact structures on negative parabolic and negative hyperbolic torus bundles over the circle. For the universally tight contact structure with twisting $π$ in $S^1$-direction on a negative parabolic torus bundle, we completely d…

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.

The paper deals with topologically trivial Legendrian knots in tight and overtwisted contact 3-manifolds. The first part contains a thorough exposition of the proof of the classification of topologically trivial Legendrian knots (i.e. Legendrian knots bounding embedded 2-disks) in tight contact 3-manifolds. This part w…

We construct (infinitely many) examples in all dimensions of contactomorphisms of closed overtwisted contact manifolds that are smoothly isotopic but not contact-isotopic to the identity.

In this paper we prove that the closed $4$-ball admits non-Kähler complex structures with strictly pseudoconcave boundary. Moreover, the induced contact structure on the boundary $3$-sphere is overtwisted.

Contact surgeries yield algebraically overtwisted manifolds.

In \cite{confol} Y. Eliashberg and W. Thurston gave a definition of tight confoliations. We give an example of a tight confoliation $ξ$ on $T^3$ violating the Thurston-Bennequin inequalities. This answers a question from \cite{confol} negatively. Although the tightness of a confoliation does not imply the Thurston-Benn…

We prove every oriented compact cyclic $3$-orbifold has a contact structure. There is another proof in the web by Daniel Herr in his uploaded thesis which depends on open book decompositions, ours is independent of that. We define overtwisted contact structures, tight contact structures and Lutz twist on oriented compa…

In this note, we obtain a new result concluding when contact (+1/n)-surgery is overtwisted. We give a counterexample to a conjecture by James Conway on overtwistedness of manifolds obtained by contact surgery. We list some problems related to the contact surgery.

We exhibit infinitely many overtwisted, right-veering, non-destabilizable open books, thus providing infinitely many counterexamples to a conjecture of Honda-Kazez-Matic. The page of all our open books is a four-holed sphere and the underlying 3-manifolds are lens spaces.

In this note, we use the recent work of Honda-Kazez-Matic [HKM] to prove that a closed contact 3-manifold admitting a compatible open book decomposition with a nontrivial monodromy which can be presented as a product of left handed Dehn twists is overtwisted.

A Legendrian or transverse knot in an overtwisted contact 3-manifold is non-loose if its complement is tight and loose if its complement is overtwisted. We define three measures of the extent of non-looseness of a non-loose knot and show they are distinct.

We show that a null-homologous transverse knot K in the complement of an overtwisted disk in a contact 3-manifold is the boundary of a Legendrian ribbon if and only if it possesses a Seifert surface S such that the self-linking number of K with respect to S satisfies $\sel(K,S)=-χ(S)$. In particular, every null-homolog…

We study open books (or open book decompositions) of a closed oriented 3-manifold which support overtwisted contact structures. We focus on a simple closed curve along which one can perform Stallings twist, called ``twisting loop''. We show that the existence of a twisting loop on the fiber surface of an open book is e…

Using open book foliations we show that an overtwisted disc in a planar open book can be put in a topologically nice position. As a corollary, we prove that a planar open book whose fractional Dehn twist coefficients grater than one for all the boundary components supports a tight contact structure.

Study contact structures on four-punctured spheres, finding infinitely many overtwisted monodromies.

In 1989, Y. Eliashberg proved that two overtwisted contact structures on a closed oriented 3-manifold are isotopic if and only if they are homotopic as 2-plane fields. We provide an alternative proof of this theorem using the convex surface theory and bypasses.

We establish a parametric extension $h$-principle for overtwisted contact structures on manifolds of all dimensions, which is the direct generalization of the $3$-dimensional result from \cite{Eli89}. It implies, in particular, that any closed manifold admits a contact structure in any given homotopy class of almost co…

We give a proof of, for the case of contact structures defined by global contact 1-forms, a Theorem stated by Eliashberg that for any overtwisted contact structure on a closed 3-manifold, its contact homology is 0. A different proof is also outlined in the appendix by Yakov Eliashberg.

The abstract discusses applications of Menke's JSJ decomposition to symplectic fillings of various 3-manifolds.

We develop a method for preserving pseudoholomorphic curves in contact 3-manifolds under surgery along transverse links. This makes use of a geometrically natural boundary value problem for holomorphic curves in a 3-manifold with stable Hamiltonian structure, where the boundary conditions are defined by 1-parameter fam…

We define invariants of null--homologous Legendrian and transverse knots in contact 3--manifolds. The invariants are determined by elements of the knot Floer homology of the underlying smooth knot. We compute these invariants, and show that they do not vanish for certain non--loose knots in overtwisted 3--spheres. More…

In this paper, sufficient conditions for contact $(+1)$-surgeries along Legendrian knots in contact rational homology 3-spheres to have vanishing contact invariants or to be overtwisted are given. They can be applied to study contact $(\pm1)$-surgeries along Legendrian links in the standard contact 3-sphere. We also ob…

Study confoliations' symplectic fillability, finding obstructions.

We establish an existence $h$-principle for symplectic cobordisms of dimension $2n>4$ with concave overtwisted contact boundary.