We classify up to isotopy the tight contact structures on small Seifert spaces with $e_0\neq0,-1,-2$. (The first version contains on the $e_0<-2$ case.)
The Ozsvath-Szabo contact invariant is a complete classification invariant for tight contact structures on small Seifert fibered 3-manifolds which are L-spaces.
We determine the closed, oriented Seifert fibered 3-manifolds which carry positive tight contact structures. Our main tool is a new non-vanishing criterion for the contact Ozsvath-Szabo invariant.
In this paper we provide the classification of tight contact structures on some small Seifert fibered manifolds. As an application of this classification, combined with work of Lekili in \cite{L2010}, we obtain infinitely many counterexamples to a question of Honda-Kazez-Matić that asks whether a right-veering, non-destabilizable open book necessarily supports a tight contact structure.
We classify tight contact structures on the small Seifert fibered 3--manifold M(-1; r_1, r_2, r_3) with r_i in (0,1) and r_1, r_2 \geq 1/2. The result is obtained by combining convex surface theory with computations of contact Ozsvath--Szabo invariants. We also show that some of the tight contact structures on the manifolds considered are nonfillable, justifying the use of Heegaard Floer theory.
We consider complements of standard Seifert surfaces of special alternating links. On these handlebodies, we use Honda's method to enumerate those tight contact structures whose dividing sets are isotopic to the link, and find their number to be the leading coefficient of the Alexander polynomial. The Euler classes of the contact structures are identified with hypertrees in a certain hypergraph. Using earlier work, this establishes a connection between contact topology and the Homfly polynomial. We also show that the contact invariants of our tight contact structures form a basis for sutured F…
Using contact surgery we define families of contact structures on certain Seifert fibered three-manifolds. We prove that all these contact structures are tight using contact Ozsath-Szabo invariants. We use these examples to show that, given a natural number n, there exists a Seifert fibered three-manifold carrying at least n pairwise non-isomorphic tight, not fillable contact structures.
We classify positive tight contact structures, up to isotopy fixing the boundary, on the manifolds $N=M(D^{2}; r_1, r_2)$ with minimal convex boundary of slope $s$ and Giroux torsion 0 along $\partial N$, where $r_1,r_2\in (0,1)\cap\mathbb{Q}$, in the following cases: (1) $s\in(-\infty, 0)\cup[2, +\infty)$; (2) $s\in[0, 1)$ and $r_1,r_2\in [1/2,1)$; (3) $s\in[1, 2)$ and $r_1,r_2\in(0,1/2)$; (4) $s=\infty$ and $r_1=r_2=1/2$. We also classify positive tight contact structures, up to isotopy fixing the boundary, on $M(D^2;1/2,1/2)$ with minimal convex boundary of arbitrary slope and Giroux torsio…
We characterize L-spaces which are Seifert fibered over the 2-sphere in terms of taut foliations, transverse foliations and transverse contact structures. We give a sufficient condition for certain contact Seifert fibered 3-manifolds with e_0=-1 to have nonzero contact Ozsvath--Szabo invariants. This yields an algorithm for deciding whether a given small Seifert fibered L-space carries a contact structure with nonvanishing contact Ozsvath--Szabo invariant. As an application, we prove the existence of tight contact structures on some 3-manifolds obtained by integral surgery along a positive tor…
Let S^3_r(K) be the oriented 3--manifold obtained by rational r-surgery on a knot K in S^3. Using the contact Ozsvath-Szabo invariants we prove, for a class of knots K containing all the algebraic knots, that S^3_r(K) carries positive, tight contact structures for every r not= 2g_s(K)-1, where g_s(K) is the slice genus of K. This implies, in particular, that the Brieskorn spheres -Sigma(2,3,4) and -Sigma(2,3,3) carry tight, positive contact structures. As an application of our main result we show that for each m in N there exists a Seifert fibered rational homology 3-sphere M_m carrying at lea…
We present classification results for exceptional Legendrian realisations of torus knots. These are the first results of that kind for non-trivial topological knot types. Enumeration results of Ding-Li-Zhang concerning tight contact structures on certain Seifert fibred manifolds with boundary allow us to place upper bounds on the number of tight contact structures on the complements of torus knots; the classification of exceptional realisations of these torus knots is then achieved by exhibiting sufficiently many realisations in terms of contact surgery diagrams. We also discuss a couple of ge…
We show that every tight contact structure on any of the lens spaces $L(ns^2-s+1,s^2)$ with $n\geq 2$, $s\geq 1$, can be obtained by a single Legendrian surgery along a suitable Legendrian realisation of the negative torus knot $T(s,-(sn-1))$ in the tight or an overtwisted contact structure on the 3-sphere.
We apply Menke's JSJ decomposition for symplectic fillings to several families of contact 3-manifolds. Among other results, we complete the classification up to orientation-preserving diffeomorphism of strong symplectic fillings of lens spaces. We show that exact symplectic fillings of contact manifolds obtained by surgery on certain Legendrian negative cables are the result of attaching a Weinstein 2-handle to an exact filling of a lens space. For large families of contact structures on Seifert fibered spaces over $S^2$, we reduce the problem of classifying exact symplectic structures to the …
We prove that if a contact 3-manifold admits an open book decomposition of genus 0, a certain intersection pattern cannot appear in the homology of any of its minimal symplectic fillings, and moreover, fillings cannot contain symplectic surfaces of positive genus. Applying these obstructions to canonical contact structures on links of normal surface singularities, we show that links of isolated singularities of surfaces in the complex 3-space are planar only in the case of $A_n$-singularities. In general, we characterize completely planar links of normal surface singularities (in terms of thei…
Using deformations of foliations to contact structures as well as rigidity properties of Anosov foliations we provide infinite families of examples which show that the space of taut foliations in a given homotopy class of plane fields is in general not path connected. Similar methods also show that the space of representations of the fundamental group of a hyperbolic surface to the group of smooth diffeomorphisms of the circle with fixed Euler class is in general not path connected. As an important step along the way we resolve the question of which universally tight contact structures on Seif…
We construct a dynamically convex contact form on the three-sphere whose systolic ratio is arbitrarily close to 2. This example is related to a conjecture of Viterbo, whose validity would imply that the systolic ratio of a convex contact form does not exceed 1. We also construct a sequence of tight contact forms $α_n$, $n\geq 2$, with systolic ratio arbitrarily close to $n$ and suitable bounds on the mean rotation number of all the closed orbits of the induced Reeb flow.