Embedded contact homology (ECH) is a kind of Floer homology for contact three-manifolds. Taubes has shown that ECH is isomorphic to a version of Seiberg-Witten Floer homology (and both are conjecturally isomorphic to a version of Heegaard Floer homology). This isomorphism allows information to be transferred between topology and contact geometry in three dimensions. In this article we first give an overview of the definition of embedded contact homology. We then outline its applications to generalizations of the Weinstein conjecture, the Arnold chord conjecture, and obstructions to symplectic embeddings in four dimensions.
We list the properties of contact homology, beyond purely formal, needed for the proofs of some of the recent applications of contact homology in dynamics to work. The list is put together for the AIM Transversality in Contact Homology Workshop.
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…
In this paper we give a rigorous definition of cylindrical contact homology for contact $3$-manifolds that admit nondegenerate contact forms with no contractible Reeb orbits, and show that the cylindrical contact homology is an invariant of the contact structure.
Computing embedded contact homology (ECH) and related invariants of certain toric 3-manifolds (in the sense of Lerman) has led to interesting new results in the study of symplectic embeddings. Here, we give a combinatorial formulation of ECH chain complexes for general toric contact 3-manifolds. As a corollary, we prove Conjecture A.3 from [Hutchings14].
We show that for dynamically convex contact forms in three dimensions, the cylindrical contact homology differential d can be defined by directly counting holomorphic cylinders for a generic almost complex structure, without any abstract perturbation of the Cauchy-Riemann equation. We also prove that d^2 = 0. Invariance of cylindrical contact homology in this case can be proved using S^1-dependent almost complex structures, similarly to work of Bourgeois-Oancea; this will be explained in another paper.
This article is a continuation of [15]. For Legendrian surfaces in $1$-jet spaces, we prove that the Cellular DGA defined in [15] is stable tame isomorphic to the Legendrian contact homology DGA.
We give a construction of contact homology in the sense of Eliashberg--Givental--Hofer. Specifically, we construct coherent virtual fundamental cycles on the relevant compactified moduli spaces of pseudo-holomorphic curves.
This paper is the sequel to the previous paper [Ne15], which showed that sufficient regularity exists to define cylindrical contact homology in dimension three for nondegenerate dynamically separated contact forms, a subclass of dynamically convex contact forms. The Reeb orbits of these so-called dynamically separated contact forms satisfy a uniform growth condition on their Conley-Zehnder indices with respect to a free homotopy class; see Definition 1.7. {Given a contact form which is dynamically separated up to large action, we demonstrate a filtration by action on the chain complex and show…
We calculate the sutured version of cylindrical contact homology of a sutured contact solid torus $(S^1\times D^2,Γ, ξ)$, where $Γ$ consists of $2n$ parallel sutures of arbitrary slope and $ξ$ is a universally tight contact structure. In particular, we show that it is non-zero. This computation is one of the first computations of the sutured version of cylindrical contact homology and does not follow from computations in the closed case.
The goal of this paper is to set up the general framework of higher-dimensional Heegaard Floer homology, define the contact class, and use it to give an obstruction to the Liouville fillability of a contact manifold and a sufficient condition for the Weinstein conjecture to hold. We discuss several classes of examples including those coming from analyzing a close cousin of symplectic Khovanov homology and the analog of the Plamenevskaya invariant of transverse links.
It is a conjecture of Colin and Honda that the number of Reeb periodic orbits of universally tight contact structures on hyperbolic manifolds grows exponentially with the period, and they speculate further that the growth rate of contact homology is polynomial on non-hyperbolic geometries. Along the line of the conjecture, for manifolds with a hyperbolic component that fibers on the circle, we prove that there are infinitely many non-isomorphic contact structures for which the number of Reeb periodic orbits of any non-degenerate Reeb vector field grows exponentially. Our result hinges on the e…
Knot contact homology studies symplectic and contact geometric properties of conormals of knots in 3-manifolds using holomorphic curve techniques. It has connections to both mathematical and physical theories. On the mathematical side, we review the theory, show that it gives a complete knot invariant, and discuss its connections to Fukaya categories, string topology, and micro-local sheaves. On the physical side, we describe the connection between the augmentation variety of knot contact homology and Gromov-Witten disk potentials, and discuss the corresponding higher genus relation that quant…
Cylindrical contact homology for weakly convex contact forms in dimension three
Southern University of Science and Technology（南方科技大学）；Shenzhen International Center for Mathematics, Southern University of Science and Technology（南方科技大学深圳国际数学中心）
We define the contact homology algebra for any contact manifold and show that it is an invariant of the contact manifold. More precisely, given a contact manifold $(M,ξ)$ and some auxiliary data $\mathcal{D}$, we define an algebra $HC(\mathcal{D})$. If $\mathcal{D}_1$ and $\mathcal{D}_2$ are two choices of auxiliary data for $(M,ξ)$, then $HC(\mathcal{D}_1)$ and $HC(\mathcal{D}_2)$ are isomorphic. We use a simplified version of Kuranishi perturbation theory, consisting of semi-global Kuranishi charts.
In this short note, we provide a criterion for DGA-homotopy of augmentations of Chekanov-Eliashberg algebra of disconnected Legendrian submanifolds. We apply the criterion to obtain the extension of geography results of Bourgeois and Galant concerning bilinearized Legendrian contact homology to the case of disconnected Legendrian submanifolds.
Let $Λ$ be a link of Legendrian spheres in the boundary of a subcritical $2n$-dimensional Weinstein manifold $X$. We show that, under some geometrical assumptions, the computation of the Legendrian contact homology of $Λ$ can be reduced to a computation of Legendrian contact homology in 1--jet spaces. Since the Legendrian contact homology in 1--jet spaces is well studied, this gives a simplified way to compute the Legendrian contact homology of $Λ$. We restrict to the case when the attaching spheres of the subcritical handles of $X$ do not interact with each other, and we assume that there are…
Given an exact symplectic cobordism $(X, λ)$ between contact $3$-manifolds $(Y_+, λ_+)$ and $(Y_-, λ_-)$ with no elliptic Reeb orbits up to a certain action, we define a chain map from the embedded contact homology (ECH) chain complex of $(Y_+, λ_+)$ to that of $(Y_-, λ_-)$, both taken with coefficients in $\mathbb Z / 2 \mathbb Z$. The map is defined by counting punctured holomorphic curves with ECH index $0$ in the completion of the cobordism and new objects that we call ECH buildings, answering a question of Hutchings.
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…
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…
We apply the conormal construction to a hyperbolic knot $K \subset S^3$, and study the sutured contact manifold $(V, ξ)$ obtained by taking the complement of a standard neighbourhood of the unit conormal $\La_K \subset (ST^*S^3, ξ_\text{st})$. We show that the sutured Legendrian contact homology of a unit fiber $\La_0$, with its product structure, is a complete invariant of the knot (up to mirror). This can also be seen as the computation of the homology of the fiber in $ST^* S^3$, stopped at $\La_K$. Our main tool is, for any submanifold $N \subset M$, an explicit relationship between the com…
Loose Legendrian n-submanifolds, for n at least 2, were introduced by Murphy and proved to be flexible in the h-principle sense: any two loose Legendrian submanifolds that are formally Legendrian isotopic are also actually Legendrian isotopic. Legendrian contact homology is a Floer theoretic invariant that associates a differential graded algebra (DGA) to a Legendrian submanifold. The DGA of a loose Legendrian submanifold is trivial.
Given a contact three manifold $Y$ with a nondegenerate contact form $λ$, and an almost complex structure $J$ compatible with $λ$, its embedded contact homology $ECH(Y,λ)$ is defined (arXiv:1303.5789) and only depends on the contact structure. In this paper we explain how to compute ECH for Morse-Bott contact forms whose Reeb orbits appear in $S^1$ families, assuming the almost complex structure $J$ can be chosen to satisfy certain transversality conditions (this is the case for instance for boundaries of concave or convex toric domains, or if all the curves of ECH index one have genus zero). …
We give a construction of embedded contact homology (ECH) for a contact $3$-manifold $Y$ with convex sutured boundary and a pair of Legendrians $Λ_+$ and $Λ_-$ contained in $\partial Y$ satisfying an exactness condition. The chain complex is generated by certain configurations of closed Reeb orbits of $Y$ and Reeb chords of $Λ_+$ to $Λ_-$. The main ingredients include: a general Legendrian adjunction formula for curves in $\mathbb{R} \times Y$ with boundary on $\mathbb{R} \times Λ$; a relative writhe bound for curves in contact $3$-manifolds asymptotic to Reeb chords; and a Legendrian ECH inde…
Knot contact homology is an invariant of knots derived from Legendrian contact homology which has numerous connections to the knot group. We use basic properties of knot groups to prove that knot contact homology detects every torus knot. Further, if the knot contact homology of a knot is isomorphic to that of a cable (respectively composite) knot, then the knot is a cable (respectively composite).
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.
This paper is the sequel to "The equivalence of Heegaard Floer homology and embedded contact homology via open book decompositions I" and is devoted to proving some of the technical parts of the HF=ECH isomorphism.
This article is a survey on the authors' proof of the isomorphism between Heegaard Floer homology and embedded contact homology appeared in This article is a survey on the authors' proof of the isomorphism between Heegaard Floer homology and embedded contact homology appeared in arXiv:1208.1074, arXiv:1208.1077 and arXiv:1208.1526.
We give a computation of the Legendrian contact homology (LCH) DGA for an arbitrary generic Legendrian surface $L$ in the $1$-jet space of a surface. As input we require a suitable cellular decomposition of the base projection of $L$. A collection of generators is associated to each cell, and the differential is given by explicit matrix formulas. In the present article, we prove that the equivalence class of this cellular DGA does not depend on the choice of decomposition, and in the sequel [35] we use this result to show that the cellular DGA is equivalent to the usual Legendrian contact homo…
This paper helps to clarify the status of cylindrical contact homology, a conjectured contact invariant introduced by Eliashberg, Givental, and Hofer in 2000. We explain how heuristic arguments fail to yield a well-defined homological invariant in the presence of multiply covered curves. We then introduce a large subclass of dynamically convex contact forms in dimension 3, termed dynamically separated, and demonstrate automatic transversality holds, therby allowing us to define the desired chain complex. The Reeb orbits of dynamically separated contact forms satisfy a uniform growth condition …
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…
