Given a Lagrangian submanifold in a symplectic manifold and a Morse function on the submanifold, we show that there is an isotopic Morse function and a symplectic Lefschetz pencil on the manifold extending the Morse function to the whole manifold. From this construction we define a sequence of symplectic invariants classifying the isotopy classes of Lagrangian spheres in a symplectic 4-manifold.
We define the concept of Lefschetz contact pencil and we show the existence of such structures on any contact manifold. The main idea of the proof is a generalization of the Donaldson arguments used in the symplectic case. We will analyze some of the applications of such existence theorem for the topology of approximately holomorphic contact submanifolds.
We study some asymptotic properties of the sequences of symplectic Lefschetz pencils constructed by Donaldson. In particular we prove that the vanishing spheres of these pencils are, for large degree, conjugated under the action of the symplectomorphism group of the fiber. This implies the non-existence of homologically trivial vanishing spheres in these pencils. Moreover we show some basic topological properties of the space of asymptotically holomorphic transverse sections. These properties allow us to define a new set of symplectic invariants of the original symplectic structure.
We study Lefschetz pencils on symplectic four-manifolds via the associated spheres in the moduli spaces of curves, and in particular their intersections with certain natural divisors. An invariant defined from such intersection numbers can distinguish manifolds with torsion first Chern class. We prove that pencils of large degree always give spheres which behave `homologically' like rational curves; contrastingly, we give the first constructive example of a symplectic non-holomorphic Lefschetz pencil. We also prove that only finitely many values of signature or Euler characteristic are realise…
In this paper we discuss topological properties of holomorphic Lefschetz pencils on the four-torus. Relying on the theory of moduli spaces of polarized abelian surfaces, we first prove that, under some mild assumption, the (smooth) isomorphism class of a holomorphic Lefschetz pencil on the four-torus is uniquely determined by its genus and divisibility. We then explicitly give a system of vanishing cycles of the genus-3 holomorphic Lefschetz pencil on the four-torus due to Smith, and obtain those of holomorphic pencils with higher genera by taking finite unbranched coverings. One can also obta…
A symplectic structure is canonically constructed on any manifold endowed with a topological linear k-system whose fibers carry suitable symplectic data. As a consequence, the classification theory for Lefschetz pencils in the context of symplectic topology is analogous to the corresponding theory arising in differential topology.
We consider structures analogous to symplectic Lefschetz pencils in the context of a closed 4-manifold equipped with a `near-symplectic' structure (ie, a closed 2-form which is symplectic outside a union of circles where it vanishes transversely). Our main result asserts that, up to blowups, every near-symplectic 4-manifold (X,omega) can be decomposed into (a) two symplectic Lefschetz fibrations over discs, and (b) a fibre bundle over S^1 which relates the boundaries of the Lefschetz fibrations to each other via a sequence of fibrewise handle additions taking place in a neighbourhood of the ze…
The harmonic cohomology of a Donaldson symplectic submanifold and of an Auroux symplectic submanifold are compared with that of its ambient space. We also study symplectic manifolds satisfying a weakly Lefschetz property, that is, the $s$-Lefschetz propery. In particular, we consider the symplectic blow-ups of the complex projective space along weakly Lefschetz symplectic submanifolds. As an application we construct, for each even integer $s\geq 2$, compact symplectic manifolds which are $s$-Lefschetz but not $(s+1)$-Lefschetz.
Donaldson showed that every closed symplectic 4-manifold can be given the structure of a topological Lefschetz pencil. Gay and Kirby showed that every closed 4-manifold has a trisection. In this paper we relate these two structure theorems, showing how to construct a trisection directly from a topological Lefschetz pencil. This trisection is such that each of the three sectors is a regular neighborhood of a regular fiber of the pencil. This is a 4-dimensional analog of the following trivial 3-dimensional result: For every open book decomposition of a 3-manifold M, there is a decomposition of M…
This set of lectures aims to give an overview of Donaldson's theory of linear systems on symplectic manifolds and the algebraic and geometric invariants to which they give rise. After collecting some of the relevant background, we discuss topological, algebraic and symplectic viewpoints on Lefschetz pencils and branched covers of the projective plane. The later lectures discuss invariants obtained by combining this theory with pseudo-holomorphic curve methods.
We consider a version of the relative Fukaya category for anticanonical Lefschetz pencils. There are direct connections between the behaviour of this category and enumerative geometry: some of these are results announced here, others remain conjectural. The ultimate aim of this approach is to determine the Fukaya category of the Calabi-Yau hypersurfaces that constitute the pencil.
We give a maximal set of disjoint $(-1)$-sections of the well-known Lefschetz fibration constructed by Matsumoto, Cadavid and Korkmaz. In fact, we obtain several such sets for a fixed genus, which implies that the Matsumoto-Cadavid-Korkmaz Lefschetz fibration has more than one supporting minimal Lefschetz pencils. We also determine the diffeomorphism types of the obtained supporting minimal Lefschetz pencils.
Every compact symplectic 4-manifold can be realized as a branched cover of the complex projective plane branched along a symplectic curve with cusp and node singularities; the covering map is induced by a triple of sections of a "very ample" line bundle. In this paper, we give an explicit formula describing the behavior of the braid monodromy invariants of the branch curve upon degree doubling of the linear system (from a very ample bundle $L^k$ to $L^{2k}$). As a consequence, we derive a similar degree doubling formula for the mapping class group monodromy of Donaldson's symplectic Lefschetz …
We present a new proof of a result due to Taubes: if X is a closed symplectic four-manifold with b_+(X) > 1+b_1(X) and with some positive multiple of the symplectic form a rational class, then the Poincare dual of the canonical class of X may be represented by an embedded symplectic submanifold. The result builds on the existence of Lefschetz pencils on symplectic four-manifolds. We approach the topological problem of constructing submanifolds with locally positive intersections via almost complex geometry. The crux of the argument is that a Gromov invariant counting pseudoholomorphic sections…
In this short note, we give an explicit construction of inequivalent Lefschetz pencils and fibrations of same genera on blow-ups of all rational and ruled surfaces. This complements our earlier results, concluding that every symplectic 4-manifold, after sufficiently many blow-ups, admits inequivalent Lefschetz pencils and fibrations, which cannot be obtained from one another even via any sequence of fibered Luttinger surgeries.
We explicitly produce symplectic genus-3 Lefschetz pencils (with base points), whose total spaces are homeomorphic but not diffeomorphic to rational surfaces CP^2 # p (-CP^2) for p= 7, 8, 9. We then give a new construction of an infinite family of symplectic Calabi-Yau surfaces with first Betti number b_1=2,3, along with a surface with b_1=4 homeomorphic to the 4-torus. These are presented as the total spaces of symplectic genus-3 Lefschetz pencils we construct via new positive factorizations in the mapping class group of a genus-3 surface. Our techniques in addition allow us to answer in the …
We initiate a study of positive multisections of Lefschetz fibrations via positive factorizations in framed mapping class groups of surfaces. Using our methods, one can effectively capture various interesting symplectic surfaces in symplectic 4-manifolds as multisections, such as Seiberg-Witten basic classes and exceptional classes, or branched loci of compact Stein surfaces as branched coverings of the 4-ball. Various problems regarding the topology of symplectic 4-manifolds, such as the smooth classification of symplectic Calabi-Yau 4-manifolds, can be translated to combinatorial problems in…
We construct symplectic submanifolds of symplectic manifolds with contact border. The boundary of such submanifolds is shown to be a contact submanifold of the contact border. We also give a topological characterization of the constructed submanifolds by means of a ``relative Lefschetz hyperplane Theorem''. We sketch some of the applications of the results.
We describe a simplification of Donaldson's arguments for the construction of symplectic hypersurfaces or Lefschetz pencils that makes it possible to avoid any reference to Yomdin's work on the complexity of real algebraic sets.
Given a symplectic manifold $(M^{2n},ω)$ we study Lagrangian cobordisms $V\subset E$ where $E$ is the total space of a Lefschetz fibration having $M$ as generic fiber. We prove a generation result for these cobordisms in the appropriate derived Fukaya category. As a corollary, we analyze the relations among the Lagrangian submanifolds $L\subset M$ that are induced by these cobordisms. This leads to a unified treatment - and a generalization - of the two types of relations among Lagrangian submanifolds of $M$ that were previously identified in the literature: those associated to Dehn twists tha…
Let M denote the total space of a Lefschetz fibration, obtained by blowing up a Lefschetz pencil on an algebraic surface. We consider the n-fold fibre sum M(n), generalizing the construction of the elliptic surfaces E(n). For a Lefschetz pencil on a simply-connected minimal surface of general type we partially calculate the Seiberg-Witten invariants of the fibre sum M(n) using a formula of Morgan-Szabo-Taubes. As an application we derive an obstruction for self-diffeomorphisms of the boundary of the tubular neighbourhood of a general fibre in M(n) to extend over the complement of the neighbour…
In this paper we study the behaviour of the Lefschetz property under the blow-up construction. We show that it is possible to reduce the dimension of the kernel of the Lefschetz map if we blow up along a suitable submanifold satisfying the Lefschetz property. We use that, together with results about Massey products, to construct nonformal (simply connected) symplectic manifolds satisfying the Lefschetz property.
We calculate the monodromies of the canonical Lefschetz pencils on a pair of homeomorphic Horikawa surfaces. We show in particular that the (pluri)canonical pencils on these surfaces have the same monodromy groups, and are related by a "partial twisting" operation.
In this paper we construct six-dimensional compact non-Kähler Hamiltonian circle manifolds which satisfy the strong Lefschetz property themselves but nevertheless have a non-Lefschetz symplectic quotient. This provides the first known counter examples to the question whether the strong Lefschetz property descends to the symplectic quotient. We also give examples of Hamiltonian strong Lefschetz circle manifolds which have a non-Lefschetz fixed point submanifold. In addition, we establish a sufficient and necessary condition for a finitely presentable group to be the fundamental group of a stron…
We prove upper bounds for the number of critical points in semistable symplectic Lefschetz fibrations. We also obtain a new lower bound for the number of nonseparting vanishing cycles in Lefschetz pencils, and reprove the known lower bounds for the commutator lengths of Dehn twists.
We use Lefschetz pencil methods to derive structural results about Fukaya categories of Calabi-Yau hypersurfaces; in particular, concerning their dependence on the Novikov parameter. Warning to the reader: the arguments in this paper cite two preprints (papers 6.5 and 7 in the series) which do not at present exist. Until that is remedied, the proofs cannot be considered complete, and this paper should be regarded as a preliminary research announcement.
We show that any 4-manifold, after surgery on a curve, admits an achiral Lefschetz fibration. In particular, we show that the connected sum of any simply connected 4-manifold with a 2-sphere bundle over the 2-sphere will admit an achiral Lefschetz fibration. We also show these surgered manifolds admit near-symplectic structures and prove more generally that achiral Lefschetz fibrations with sections have near-symplectic structures. As a corollary to our proof we obtain an alternate proof of Gompf's result on the existence of symplectic structures on Lefschetz pencils.
We prove that any symplectic 4-manifold which is not a rational or ruled surface, after sufficiently many blow-ups, admits an arbitrary number of nonisomorphic Lefschetz fibrations of the same genus which cannot be obtained from one another via Luttinger surgeries. This generalizes results of Park and Yun who constructed pairs of nonisomorphic Lefschetz fibrations on knot surgered elliptic surfaces. In turn, we prove that there are monodromy factorizations of Lefschetz pencils which have the same characteristic numbers but cannot be obtained from each other via partial conjugations by Dehn twi…
We introduce the concept of s-formal minimal model as an extension of formality. We prove that any orientable compact manifold M, of dimension 2n or (2n-1), is formal if and only if M is (n-1)-formal. The formality and the hard Lefschetz property are studied for the symplectic manifolds constructed by Donaldson with asymptotically holomorphic techniques. This study permits us to show an example of a Donaldson symplectic manifold of dimension eight which is formal simply connected and does not satisfy the hard Lefschetz theorem.
We consider C^*-actions on Fukaya categories of exact symplectic manifolds. Such actions can be constructed by dimensional induction, going from the fibre of a Lefschetz fibration to its total space. We explore applications to the topology of Lagrangian submanifolds, with an emphasis on ease of computation.
In a compact, symplectic real manifold, i.e supporting an antisymplectic involution, we use Donaldson's construction to build a codimension 2 symplectic submanifold invariant under the action of the involution. If the real part of the manifold is not empty, and if the symplectic form $\om$ is entire, then for all $k$ big enough, we can find a hypersurface Poincaré dual of $k[ω]$ such that its real part has at least $k^{\dim X/4}$ connected components, up to a constant independant of $k$. Finally we extend to our real case Donaldson's construction of Lefschetz pencils.
We introduce a method to resolve a symplectic orbifold into a smooth symplectic manifold. Then we study how the formality and the Lefschetz property of the symplectic resolution are compared with that of the symplectic orbifold. We also study the formality of the symplectic blow-up of a symplectic orbifold along symplectic submanifolds disjoint from the orbifold singularities. This allows us to construct the first example of a simply connected compact symplectic manifold of dimension 8 which satisfies the Lefschetz property but is not formal, therefore giving a counter-example to a conjecture …
In this article, we study the maximal length of positive Dehn twist factorizations of surface mapping classes. In connection to fundamental questions regarding the uniform topology of symplectic 4-manifolds and Stein fillings of contact 3-manifolds coming from the topology of supporting Lefschetz pencils and open books, we completely determine which boundary multitwists admit arbitrarily long positive Dehn twist factorizations along nonseparating curves, and which mapping class groups contain elements admitting such factorizations. Moreover, for every pair of positive integers g,n, we tell whe…
We show that hyperelliptic symplectic Lefschetz fibrations are symplectically birational to two-fold covers of rational ruled surfaces, branched in a symplectically embedded surface. This reduces the classification of genus 2 fibrations to the classification of certain symplectic submanifolds in rational ruled surfaces.
The topology of broken Lefschetz fibrations is studied by means of handle decompositions. We consider a slight generalization of round handles, and describe the handle diagrams for all that appear in dimension four. We establish simplified handlebody and monodromy representations for a certain subclass of broken Lefschetz fibrations/pencils, while showing that all near-symplectic closed 4-manifolds can be supported by these a la Auroux, Donaldson, Katzarkov. Various constructions of broken Lefschetz fibrations and a generalization of the symplectic fiber sum operation to the near-symplectic se…
We study a symplectic surgery operation we call unchaining, which effectively reduces the second Betti number and the symplectic Kodaira dimension at the same time. Using unchaining, we give novel constructions of symplectic Calabi-Yau surfaces from complex surfaces of general type, as well as from rational and ruled surfaces via the natural inverse of this operation. Combining the unchaining surgery with others, which all correspond to certain monodromy substitutions for Lefschetz pencils, we provide further applications, such as a complete resolution of a conjecture of Stipsicz on the existe…
We prove that every closed oriented smooth 4-manifold X admits a broken Lefschetz fibration (aka singular Lefschetz fibration) over the 2-sphere. Given any closed orientable surface F of square zero in X, we can choose the fibration so that F is a fiber. Moreover, we can arrange it so that there is only one Lefschetz critical point when the Euler characteristic e(X) is odd, and none when e(X) is even. We make use of topological modifications of smooth maps with fold and cusp singularities due to Saeki and Levine, and thus we get alternative proofs of previous existence results. Also shown is t…
In this paper we construct, in all odd complex dimensions, pairs of Liouville domains W_0 and W_1 which are diffeomorphic to the cotangent bundle of the sphere with one extra subcritical handle, but are not symplectomorphic. While W_0 is symplectically very similar to the cotangent bundle itself, W_1 is more unusual. We use Seidel's exact triangles for Floer cohomology to show that the wrapped Fukaya category of W_1 is trivial. As a corollary we obtain that W_1 contains no compact exact Lagrangian submanifolds.
In this note we study homological cycles in the mirror quintic Calabi-Yau threefold which can be realized by special Lagrangian submanifolds. We have used Picard-Lefschetz theory to establish the monodromy action and to study the orbit of Lagrangian vanishing cycles. For many prime numbers $p$ we can compute the orbit modulo $p$. We conjecture that the orbit in homology with coefficients in $\mathbb{Z}$ can be determined by these orbits with coefficients in $\mathbb{Z}_p$.
We study Lagrangian cobordisms with the tools provided by Lagrangian quantum homology. In particular, we develop the theory for the setting of Lagrangian cobordisms or Lagrangians with cylindrical ends in a Lefschetz fibration, and put the different versions of the quantum homology groups into relation by a long exact sequence. We prove various practical relations of maps in this long exact sequence and we extract invariants that generalize the notion of discriminants to Lagrangian cobordisms in Lefschetz fibrations. We prove results on the relation of the discriminants of the ends of a cobord…
Generalized complex (GC) geometry interpolates between ordinary symplectic and complex geometry. Stable generalized complex manifolds (first introduced by Cavalcanti, Gualtieri in 2015) carry a Poisson structure which is generically symplectic, but degenerates on a (real) codimension-2 submanifold. Up to gauge equivalence, the stable generalized complex structure is thus determined by what is called an elliptic symplectic form, which allows the extension of a number of techniques and results from symplectic geometry to stable GC geometry. This paper introduces a new type of submanifold in stab…
Lecture 1: Projective and Kähler Manifolds, the Enriques classification, construction techniques. Lecture 2: Surfaces of general type and their Canonical models. Deformation equivalence and singularities. Lecture 3: Deformation and diffeomorphism, canonical symplectic structure for surfaces of general type. Lecture 4: Irrational pencils, orbifold fundamental groups, and surfaces isogenous to a product. Lecture 5: Lefschetz pencils, braid and mapping class groups, and diffeomorphism of ABC-surfaces. Epilogue: Deformation, diffeomorphism and symplectomorphism type of surfaces of general type.
Given a closed manifold N and a self-indexing Morse function f: N --> R with up to four distinct Morse indices, we construct a symplectic Lefschetz fibration pi: E --> C which models the complexification of f on the disk cotangent bundle, f_C : D(T*N) --> C, when f is real analytic. By construction, pi: E --> C comes with an explicit regular fiber M and vanishing spheres V_1,...,V_m in M, one for each critical point of f. Our main result is that (E,pi) is a good model for the complexification (D(T*N),f_C) in the sense that N embeds in E as an exact Lagrangian submanifold, and in addition, pi|N…
In this paper, we generalize construction of Seidel's long exact sequence of Lagrangian Floer cohomology to that of compact Lagrangian submanifolds with vanishing Malsov class on general Calabi-Yau manifolds. We use the framework of anchored Lagrangian submanifolds developed in \cite{fooo:anchor} and some compactness theorem of \emph{smooth} $J$-holomorphic sections of Lefschetz Hamiltonian fibration for a generic choice of $J$. The proof of the latter compactness theorem involves a study of proper pseudoholomorphic curves in the setting of noncompact symplectic manifolds with cylindrical ends…
After reviewing recent results on symplectic Lefschetz pencils and symplectic branched covers of CP^2, we describe a new construction of maps from symplectic manifolds of any dimension to CP^2 and the associated monodromy invariants. We also show that a dimensional induction process makes it possible to describe any compact symplectic manifold by a series of words in braid groups and a word in a symmetric group.
We introduce new finite-dimensional cohomologies on symplectic manifolds. Each exhibits Lefschetz decomposition and contains a unique harmonic representative within each class. Associated with each cohomology is a primitive cohomology defined purely on the space of primitive forms. We identify the dual currents of lagrangians and more generally coisotropic submanifolds with elements of a primitive cohomology, which dualizes to a homology on coisotropic chains.
We construct finite group actions on Lagrangian Floer theory when symplectic manifolds have finite group actions and Lagrangian submanifolds have induced group actions. We first define finite group actions on Novikov-Morse theory. We introduce the notion of a {\em spin profile} as an obstruction class of extending the group action on Lagrangian submanifold to the one on its spin structure, which is a group cohomology class in $H^2(G;\Z/2)$. For a class of Lagrangian submanifolds which have the same spin profiles, we define a finite group action on their Fukaya category. In consequence, we obta…
We give a generalization of the concept of near-symplectic structures to 2n dimensions. According to our definition, a closed 2-form ωon a 2n-manifold M is near-symplectic, if it is symplectic outside a submanifold Z of codimension 3, where ω^{n-1} vanishes. This extends the concept known in dimension 4. We depict how this notion relates to near-symplectic 4-manifolds and broken Lefschetz fibrations via some examples. We define a generalized broken Lefschetz fibration, or BLF, as a singular map with indefinite folds and Lefschetz-type singularities. We show that given such a map on a 2n-manifo…
In this article we study Weinstein structures endowed with a Lefschetz fibration in terms of the Legendrian front projection. First we provide a systematic recipe for translating from a Weinstein Lefschetz bifibration to a Legendrian handlebody. Then we present several applications of this technique to symplectic topology. This includes the detection of flexibility and rigidity for several families of Weinstein manifolds and the existence of closed exact Lagrangian submanifolds. In addition, we prove that the Koras--Russell cubic is Stein deformation equivalent to affine complex 3-space and ve…
Motivated by the programmes initiated by Taubes and Perutz, we study the geometry of near-symplectic 4-manifolds, i.e., manifolds equipped with a closed 2-form which is symplectic outside a union of embedded 1-dimensional submanifolds, and broken Lefschetz fibrations on them. We present a set of four moves which allow us to pass from any given fibration to any other broken fibration which is deformation equivalent to it. Moreover, we study the change of the near-symplectic geometry under each of these moves. The arguments rely on the introduction of a more general class of maps, which we call …
Given a symplectic cohomology class of degree 1, we define the notion of an equivariant Lagrangian submanifold. The Floer cohomology of equivariant Lagrangian submanifolds has a natural endomorphism, which induces a grading by generalized eigenspaces. Taking Euler characteristics with respect to the induced grading yields a deformation of the intersection number. Dehn twists act naturally on equivariant Lagrangians. Cotangent bundles and Lefschetz fibrations give fully computable examples. A key step in computations is to impose the "dilation" condition stipulating that the BV operator applied…
Using the existence of certain symplectic submanifolds in symplectic 4-manifolds, we prove an estimate from above for the number of singular fibers with separating vanishing cycles in minimal Lefschetz fibrations over surfaces of positive genus. This estimate is then used to deduce that mapping class groups are not uniformly perfect, and that the map from their second bounded cohomology to ordinary cohomology is not injective.