In her PhD thesis Milin developed an equivariant version of the contact homology groups constructed by Eliashberg, Kim and Polterovich and used it to prove an equivariant contact non-squeezing theorem. In this article we re-obtain the same result in the setting of generating functions, starting from the homology groups studied in arXiv:0901.3112. As Milin showed, this result implies orderability of lens spaces.
We study Liouville fillable contact manifolds $(Σ,ξ)$ with non-zero Rabinowitz Floer homology and assign spectral numbers to paths of contactomorphisms. As a consequence we prove that $\widetilde{\mathrm{Cont}_0}(Σ,ξ)$ is orderable in the sense of Eliashberg and Polterovich. This provides a new class of orderable contact manifolds. If the contact manifold is in addition periodic or a prequantization space $M \times S^1$ for $M$ a Liouville manifold, then we construct a contact capacity. This can be used to prove a general non-squeezing result, which amongst other examples in particular recover…
We present three equivalent definitions of $S^1$-equivariant symplectic homology. We show that, using rational coefficients, the positive part of $S^1$-equivariant symplectic homology is isomorphic to linearized contact homology, when the latter is defined. We present several computations and applications, and introduce a rigorously defined substitute for cylindrical/linearized contact homology based on an $S^1$-equivariant construction.
Gromov's famous non-squeezing theorem (1985) states that the standard symplectic ball cannot be symplectically squeezed into any cylinder of smaller radius. Does there exist an analogue of this result in contact geometry? Our main finding is that the answer depends on the sizes of the domains in question: We establish contact non-squeezing on large scales, and show that it disappears on small scales. The algebraic counterpart of the (non)-squeezing problem for contact domains is the question of existence of a natural partial order on the universal cover of the contactomorphisms group of a cont…
This sketch shows that the usual generating function based capacities have an interpretation in the language of persistent homology as persistences of certain homology classes in the persistence module formed by the corresponding generating function homology groups. This viewpoint suggests various new invariants, in particular a $\mathbb{Z}_k$-equivariant capacity which can be used to prove orderability of lens spaces, proved by Milin (2008) using contact homology and by Sandon (2010) using equivariant generating function homology. These are informal notes originally circulated in January 2014…
Seidel-Smith and Hendricks used equivariant Floer cohomology to define some spectral sequences from symplectic Khovanov homology and Heegaard Floer homology. These spectral sequences give rise to Smith-type inequalities. Similar-looking spectral sequences have been defined by Lee, Bar-Natan, Ozsváth-Szabó, Lipshitz-Treumann, Szabó, Sarkar-Seed-Szabó, and others. In this paper we give another construction of equivariant Floer cohomology with respect to a finite group action and use it to prove some invariance properties of these spectral sequences; prove that some of these spectral sequences ag…
Inspired by Kronheimer and Mrowka's approach to monopole Floer homology, we develop a model for $\mathbb{Z}/2$-equivariant symplectic Floer theory using equivariant almost complex structures, which admits a localization map to a twisted version of Floer cohomology in the invariant set. We then present applications to Steenrod operations on Lagrangian Floer cohomology, and to the Heegaard Floer homology of double covers of three-manifolds.
We correct a mistake regarding almost complex structures on Hilbert schemes of points in surfaces in arXiv:1510.02449. The error does not affect the main results of the paper, and only affects the proofs of invariance of equivariant symplectic Khovanov homology and reduced symplectic Khovanov homology. We give an alternate proof of the invariance of equivariant symplectic Khovanov homology.
In a previous paper, we showed that the original definition of cylindrical contact homology, with rational coefficients, is valid on a closed three-manifold with a dynamically convex contact form. However we did not show that this cylindrical contact homology is an invariant of the contact structure. In the present paper, we define "nonequivariant contact homology" and "S^1-equivariant contact homology", both with integer coefficients, for a contact form on a closed manifold in any dimension with no contractible Reeb orbits. We prove that these contact homologies depend only on the contact str…
We consider a family of tight contact structures on the three-dimensional torus and we compute the relative Contact Homology by using the variational theory of critical points at infinity. We will also show some algebraic equivariant homology reductions.
We show that the differential in positive equivariant symplectic homology or linearized contact homology vanishes for non-degenerate Reeb flows with a continuous invariant Lagrangian subbundle (e.g. Anosov Reeb flows). Several applications are given, including obstructions to the existence of these flows and abundance of periodic orbits for contact forms representing an Anosov contact structure.
We establish computational results concerning the Lagrangian capacity from "Cieliebak and Mohnke - Punctured holomorphic curves and Lagrangian embeddings". More precisely, we show that the Lagrangian capacity of a 4-dimensional convex toric domain is equal to its diagonal. The proof involves comparisons between the Lagrangian capacity, the McDuff-Siegel capacities from "McDuff and Siegel - Symplectic capacities, unperturbed curves, and convex toric domains", and the Gutt-Hutchings capacities from "Gutt and Hutchings - Symplectic capacities from positive S1-equivariant symplectic homology". Wor…
In this paper we prove two isomorphisms in the local symplectic homology of a simple, which is to say non iterated, isolated Reeb orbit. The isomorphisms are in $S^1$-equivariant and nonequivariant symplectic homology, relating the local Floer homology group of the orbit to that of the return map. The isomorphism we prove in $S^1$-equivariant symplectic homology can be stated succinctly as the local $S^1$-equivariant symplectic homology of a simple isolated Reeb orbit is isomorphic to the local Hamiltonian Floer homology of the return map. We also prove the equivalence of two different definit…
We study the existence of multiple closed Reeb orbits on some contact manifolds by means of $S^1$-equivariant symplectic homology and the index iteration formula. It is proved that a certain class of contact manifolds which admit displaceable exact contact embeddings, a certain class of prequantization bundles, and Brieskorn spheres have multiple closed Reeb orbits.
We use positive S^1-equivariant symplectic homology to define a sequence of symplectic capacities c_k for star-shaped domains in R^{2n}. These capacities are conjecturally equal to the Ekeland-Hofer capacities, but they satisfy axioms which allow them to be computed in many more examples. In particular, we give combinatorial formulas for the capacities c_k of any "convex toric domain" or "concave toric domain". As an application, we determine optimal symplectic embeddings of a cube into any convex or concave toric domain. We also extend the capacities c_k to functions of Liouville domains whic…
We show that positive $S^1$-equivariant symplectic homology is a contact invariant for a subclass of contact manifolds which are boundaries of Liouville domains. In nice cases, when the set of Conley-Zehnder indices of all good periodic Reeb orbits on the boundary of the Liouville domain is lacunary, the positive $S^1$-equivariant symplectic homology can be computed; it is generated by those orbits. We prove a "Viterbo functoriality" property: when one Liouville domain is embedded into an other one, there is a morphism (reversing arrows) between their positive $S^1$-equivariant symplectic homo…
For G a Lie group acting on a symplectic manifold $(M,ω)$ preserving a pair of Lagrangians $L_0$, $L_1$, under certain hypotheses not including equivariant transversality we construct a G-equivariant Floer cohomology of $L_0$ and $L_1$.
We define $S^1$-equivariant symplectic homology for symplectically aspherical manifolds with contact boundary, using a Floer-type construction first proposed by Viterbo. We show that it is related to the usual symplectic homology by a Gysin exact sequence. As an important ingredient of the proof, we define a parametrized version of symplectic homology, corresponding to families of Hamiltonian functions indexed by a finite dimensional smooth parameter space.
We establish restrictions on Lagrangian embeddings of rational homology spheres into certain open symplectic manifolds, namely the (A_m) Milnor fibres of odd complex dimension. This relies on general considerations about equivariant objects in module categories (which may be applicable in other situations as well), as well as results of Ishii-Uehara and Ishii-Ueda-Uehara concerning the derived categories of coherent sheaves on the resolutions of (A_m) surface singularities.
We prove that if M is a closed, connected, oriented, rationally inessential manifold, then the Hofer-Zehnder capacity of the unit disk bundle of the cotangent bundle of M is finite.
We define the $S^1$-equivariant Rabinowitz-Floer homology of a bounding contact hypersurface $Σ$ in an exact symplectic manifold, and show by a geometric argument that it vanishes if $Σ$ is displaceable. In the appendix we describe an approach to transversality for Floer homologies for which the moduli space $\widehat M_J$ of all gradient flow lines is compact for some almost complex structure $J$. This approach uses a large set of perturbations, namely vector fields on the loop space, and selects from the possibly non-compact perturbed moduli spaces a part near $\widehat M_J$ that turns out t…
The aim of this article is to apply a Floer theory to study symmetric periodic Reeb orbits. We define positive equivariant wrapped Floer homology using a (anti-)symplectic involution on a Liouville domain and investigate its algebraic properties. By a careful analysis of index iterations, we obtain a non-trivial lower bound on the minimal number of geometrically distinct symmetric periodic Reeb orbits on a certain class of real contact manifolds. This includes non-degenerate real dynamically convex starshaped hypersurfaces in $\mathbb{R}^{2n}$ which are invariant under complex conjugation. As …
We study Reeb dynamics on prequantization circle bundles and the filtered (equivariant) symplectic homology of prequantization line bundles, aka negative line bundles, with symplectically aspherical base. We define (equivariant) symplectic capacities, obtain an upper bound on their growth, prove uniform instability of the filtered symplectic homology and touch upon the question of stable displacement. We also introduce a new algebraic structure on the positive (equivariant) symplectic homology capturing the free homotopy class of a closed Reeb orbit -- the linking number filtration -- and use …
It was pointed out by Eliashberg in his ICM 2006 plenary talk that the integrable systems of rational Gromov-Witten theory very naturally appear in the rich algebraic formalism of symplectic field theory (SFT). Carefully generalizing the definition of gravitational descendants from Gromov-Witten theory to SFT, one can assign to every contact manifold a Hamiltonian system with symmetries on SFT homology and the question of its integrability arises. While we have shown how the well-known string, dilaton and divisor equations translate from Gromov-Witten theory to SFT, the next step is to show ho…
