We study symplectic surfaces in ruled symplectic 4-manifolds which are disjoint from a given symplectic section. As a consequence we see that, in any symplectic 4-manifold, two homologous symplectic surfaces which are sufficiently C^0 close must be Hamiltonian isotopic.
The aim of this paper is to explain a link between symplectic isotopies of open objects such as balls and flexibility properties of symplectic hypersurfaces. We get connectedness results for spaces of symplectic ellipsoids or maximal packings of $P^2$.
Floer theory relates the dynamics of Hamiltonian isotopies and the homology of the ambient manifold. It was extended to similarly relate the dynamics of symplectic isotopies and the Novikov homology associated to their flux. We discuss this picture regarding the fundamental group, and prove that when the flux is not too big, the associated Novikov fundamental group is generated by Floer moduli spaces associated to closed orbits of the symplectic isotopy.
We study two related invariants of Lagrangian submanifolds in symplectic manifolds. For a Lagrangian torus these invariants are functions on the first cohomology of the torus. The first invariant is of topological nature and is related to the study of Lagrangian isotopies with a given Lagrangian flux. More specifically, it measures the length of straight paths in the first cohomology that can be realized as the Lagrangian flux of a Lagrangian isotopy. The second invariant is of analytical nature and comes from symplectic function theory. It is defined for Lagrangian submanifolds admitting fibr…
This note on the flux homomorphism for strictly contact isotopies complements the recent paper [MS11a] by P. Spaeth and the author. We determine the volume flux restricted to symplectic and volume-preserving contact isotopies and their C^0-limits for some classes of symplectic and contact manifolds and for a number of examples. In particular, we see that the restriction of the flux may fail to be surjective. It vanishes for an isotopy preserving a regular contact form, but can be nontrivial for non-regular contact forms. Applications are discussed in the article cited above. We also find obstr…
We show that a symplectic isotopy that is a $C^0$ limit of Hamiltonian isotopies is itself Hamiltonian, if the corresponding sequence of generating Hamiltonians converge in $L^{(1, \infty)}$ topology.
We exhibit monotone Lagrangian tori inside the standard symplectic four-dimensional unit ball that become Hamiltonian isotopic to the Clifford torus, i.e.~the standard product torus, only when considered inside a strictly larger ball (they are not even symplectomorphic to a standard torus inside the unit ball). These tori are then used to construct new examples of symplectic embeddings of toric domains into the unit ball which are symplectically knotted in the sense of J.~Gutt and M.~Usher. We also give a characterisation of the Clifford torus inside the ball as well as the projective plane in…
We generalize the "hamiltonian topology" on hamiltonian isotopies to an intrinsic "symplectic topology" on the space of symplectic isotopies. We use it to define the group $SSympeo(M,ω)$ of strong symplectic homeomorphisms, which generalizes the group $Hameo(M,ω)$ of hamiltonian homeomorphisms introduced by Oh and Muller. The group $SSympeo(M,ω)$ is arcwise connected, is contained in the identity component of $Sympeo(M,ω)$; it contains $Hameo(M,ω)$ as a normal subgroup and coincides with it when $M$ is simply connected. Finally its commutator subgroup $[SSympeo(M,ω),SSympeo(M,ω)]$ is contained…
Let $(M,ω)$ be a ruled symplectic four-manifold. If $(M, ω)$ is rational, then every homologically trivial symplectic cyclic action on $(M,ω)$ is the restriction of a Hamiltonian circle action.
Positive loops of Legendrian embeddings are examined from the point of view of Floer homology of Lagrangian cobordisms. This leads to new obstructions to the existence of a positive loop containing a given Legendrian, expressed in terms of the Legendrian contact homology of the Legendrian submanifold. As applications, old and new examples of orderable contact manifolds are obtained and discussed. We also show that contact manifolds admitting a filling of a Liouville domain with non-zero symplectic homology is strongly orderable in the sense of Liu.
This survey presents some recent results by the authors and Polterovich on the topological properties of ruled symplectic manifolds. The bundle M \to P \to B that is associated with a ruled manifold has the group of Hamiltonian symplectomorphisms of M as structure group if the base is simply connected. Thus information about Hamiltonian bundles gives stability results for ruled structures as well as obstructions to their existence.
This paper is devoted to deformations of Lagrangian submanifolds contained in the singular locus of a log-symplectic manifold. We prove a normal form result for the log-symplectic structure around such a Lagrangian, which we use to extract algebraic and geometric information about the Lagrangian deformations. We show that the deformation problem is governed by a DGLA, we discuss whether the Lagrangian admits deformations not contained in the singular locus, and we give precise criteria for unobstructedness of first order deformations. We also address equivalences of deformations, showing that …
We continue our previous work to prove that for any non-minimal ruled surface $(M,ω)$, the stability under symplectic deformations of $π_0, π_1$ of $Symp(M,ω)$ is guided by embedded $J$-holomorphic curves. Further, we prove that for any fixed sizes blowups, when the area ratio $μ$ between the section and fiber goes to infinity, there is a topological colimit of $Symp(M,ω_μ).$ Moreover, when the blowup sizes are all equal to half the area of the fiber class, we give a topological model of the colimit which induces non-trivial symplectic mapping classes in $Symp(M,ω) \cap \rm Diff_0(M),$ where $…
Let I be an open interval, M be a real manifold, T*M its cotangent bundle and Φ={ϕ_t}, t in I, a homogeneous Hamiltonian isotopy of T*M defined outside the zero-section. Let Λbe the conic Lagrangian submanifold associated with Φ(Λis a subset of T*M x T*M x T*I). We prove the existence and unicity of a sheaf K on MxMxI whose microsupport is contained in the union of Λand the zero-section and whose restriction to t=0 is the constant sheaf on the diagonal of MxM. We give applications of this result to problems of non displaceability in contact and symplectic topology. In particular we prove that …
Let M:=(M^{4},\om) be a 4-dimensional rational ruled symplectic manifold and denote by w_{M} its Gromov width. Let Emb_ω(B^{4}(c),M) be the space of symplectic embeddings of the standard ball B^4(c) \subset \R^4 of radius r and of capacity c:= πr^2 into (M,\om). By the work of Lalonde and Pinsonnault, we know that there exists a critical capacity \ccrit \in (0,w_{M}] such that, for all c\in(0,\ccrit), the embedding space Emb_ω(B^{4}(c),M) is homotopy equivalent to the space of symplectic frames \SFr(M). We also know that the homotopy type of Emb_ω(B^{4}(c),M) changes when c reaches \ccrit and …
We introduce the secondary Stiefel-Whitney class $\tilde w_2$ of homotopically trivial diffeomorphisms and show that a homotopically trivial symplectomorphism of a ruled 4-manifold is isotopic to identity if and only if the class $\tilde w_2$ vanishes. Using this, we give a detailed description of the combinatorial structure of the diffeotopy group of ruled symplectic 4-manifolds $X$, either minimal or blown-up, and its action on the homology and homotopy groups $H_2(X,\zz)$, $π_1(X)$, and $π_2(X)$.
We consider open symplectic manifolds which admit dilations (in the sense previously introduced by Solomon and the author). We obtain restrictions on collections of Lagrangian submanifolds which are pairwise disjoint (or pairwise disjoinable by Hamiltonian isotopies) inside such manifolds. This includes the Milnor fibres of isolated hypersurface singularities which have been stabilized (by adding quadratic terms) sufficiently often.
We classify four-dimensional manifolds endowed with symplectic pairs admitting embedded symplectic spheres with non-negative self-intersection, following the strategy of McDuff's classification of rational and ruled symplectic four manifolds.
In this paper we study the topology of the space $\I_ω$ of complex structures compatible with a fixed symplectic form $ω$, using the framework of Donaldson. By comparing our analysis of the space $\I_ω$ with results of McDuff on the space $\cat J_ω$ of compatible almost complex structures on rational ruled surfaces, we find that $\I_ω$ is contractible in this case. We then apply this result to study the topology of the symplectomorphism group of a rational ruled surface, extending results of Abreu and McDuff.
Log-symplectic structures are Poisson structures that are determined by a symplectic form with logarithmic singularities. We construct moduli spaces of curves with values in a log-symplectic manifold. Among the applications, we classify symplectically ruled log-symplectic $4$ manifolds (both orientable and non-orientable), and obstruct the existence of contact boundary components, in analogy with well-known theorems by McDuff. Moreover, we study certain log-symplectically ruled surfaces, using tools from symplectic field theory.
The symplectic isotopy conjecture states that every smooth symplectic surface in $CP^2$ is symplectically isotopic to a complex algebraic curve. Progress began with Gromov's pseudoholomorphic curves [Gro85], and progressed further culminating in Siebert and Tian's proof of the conjecture up to degree 17 [ST05], but further progress has stalled. In this article we provide a new direction of attack on this problem. Using a solution to a nodal symplectic isotopy problem we guide model symplectic isotopies of smooth surfaces. This results in an equivalence between the smooth symplectic isotopy pro…
We study the fields of endomorphisms intertwining pairs of symplectic structures. Using these endomorphisms we prove an analogue of Moser's theorem for simultaneous isotopies of two families of symplectic forms. We also consider the geometric structures defined by pairs and triples of symplectic forms for which the squares of the intertwining endomorphisms are plus or minus the identity. For pairs of forms we recover the notions of symplectic pairs and of holomorphic symplectic structures. For triples we recover the notion of a hypersymplectic structure, and we also find three new structures t…
Let $X$ be any rational ruled symplectic four-manifold. Given a symplectic embedding $ι:B_{c}\into X$ of the standard ball of capacity $c$ into $X$, consider the corresponding symplectic blow-up $\tX_ι$. In this paper, we study the homotopy type of the symplectomorphism group $\Symp(\tX_ι)$, simplifying and extending the results of math.SG/0207096. This allows us to compute the rational homotopy groups of the space $\IEmb(B_{c},X)$ of unparametrized symplectic embeddings of $B_{c}$ into $X$. We also show that the embedding space of one ball in $CP^2$, and the embedding space of two disjoint ba…
We completely solve the symplectic packing problem with equally sized balls for any rational, ruled, symplectic 4-manifolds. We give explicit formulae for the packing numbers, the generalized Gromov widths, the stability numbers, and the corresponding obstructing exceptional classes. As a corollary, we give explicit values for when an ellipsoid of type $E(a, b)$, with $\frac{b}{a} \in \N$, embeds in a polydisc $P(s,t)$. Under this integrality assumption, we also give an alternative proof of a recent result of M. Hutchings showing that the ECH capacities give sharp inequalities for embedding el…
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.
We show that certain classes of contact 3-manifolds do not admit non-separating contact type embeddings into any closed symplectic 4-manifolds, e.g. this is the case for all contact manifolds that are (partially) planar or have Giroux torsion. The latter implies that manifolds with Giroux torsion do not admit contact type embeddings into any closed symplectic 4-manifolds. Similarly, there are symplectic 4-manifolds that can admit smoothly embedded non-separating hypersurfaces, but not of contact type: we observe that this is the case for all symplectic ruled surfaces.
In this paper, we study deformations of coisotropic submanifolds in a locally conformal symplectic manifold. Firstly, we derive the equation that governs $C^\infty$ deformations of coisotropic submanifolds and define the corresponding $C^\infty$-moduli space of coisotropic submanifolds modulo the Hamiltonian isotopies. Secondly, we prove that the formal deformation problem is governed by an $L_\infty$-structure which is a $\frak b$-deformation of strong homotopy Lie algebroids introduced in Oh and Park (2005) in the symplectic context. Then we study deformations of locally conformal symplectic…
Entov and Polterovich defined heaviness for closed subsets of a symplectic manifold by using the Hamiltonian Floer theory on contractible trajectories. Heavy subsets are known to be non-displaceable. In the present paper, we define a relative symplectic capacity $C(M,X,R;e)$ for a symplectic manifold $(M,ω)$ and its subset $X$ which measures the existence of non-contractible trajectories of Hamiltonian isotopies on the product with annulus. We prove that $C(M,X,R;e)$ is finite if $(M,ω)$ is monotone and $X$ is a heavy subset. We also prove that $C(M,X,R;e)$ is infinite if $X$ is a displaceable…
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.
The first author introduced a relative symplectic capacity $C$ for a symplectic manifold $(N,ω_N)$ and its subset $X$ which measures the existence of non-contractible periodic trajectories of Hamiltonian isotopies on the product of $N$ with the annulus $A_R=(R,R)\times\mathbb{R}/\mathbb{Z}$. In the present paper, we give an exact computation of the capacity $C$ of the $2n$-torus $\mathbb{T}^{2n}$ relative to a Lagrangian submanifold $\mathbb{T}^n$ which implies the existence of non-contractible Hamiltonian periodic trajectories on $A_R\times\mathbb{T}^{2n}$. Moreover, we give a lower bound on …
In this short article we give a criterion whether a given minimal symplectic 4-manifold with $b_{2}^{+}=1$ having a torsion-free canonical class is rational or ruled. As a corollary, we confirm that most of homotopy elliptic surfaces $E(1}_{K}$, K is a fibered knot in $S^3$, constructed by R. Fintushel and R. Stern are minimal symplectic 4-manifolds with $b_{2}^{+}=1$ which do not admit a complex structure.
This note discusses the structure of J-holomorphic curves in symplectic 4-manifolds (M,\om) when J\in \Jj(\Ss), the set of \om-tame J for which a fixed chain \Ss of transversally intersecting embedded spheres of self-intersection \le -2 is J-holomorphic. Extending work by Biran (in Invent. Math. (1999)), it shows that when (M,\om) is the blow up of a rational or ruled symplectic 4-manifold, any homology class A\in H_2(M;\Z), with nonzero Gromov invariant and nonnegative intersection both with the spheres in \Ss and with the exceptional classes other than A, has an embedded J-holomorphic repres…
This paper studies groups of symplectomorphisms of ruled surfaces for symplectic forms with varying cohomology class. This class is characterized by the ratio R of the size of the base to that of the fiber. By considering appropriate spaces of almost complex structures, we investigate how the topological type of these groups changes as R increases. If the base is a sphere, this changes precisely when R passes an integer, and for general bases it stabilizes as R goes to infinity. Our results extend and make more precise some of the conclusions of Abreu--McDuff concerning the rational homotopy t…
Modulo trivial exceptions, we show that smoothly nontrivial symplectic sums of symplectic 4-manifolds along surfaces of positive genus are never rational or ruled, and we enumerate each case in which they have Kodaira dimension zero (i.e., are blowups of symplectic 4-manifolds with torsion canonical class). In particular, a symplectic four-manifold of Kodaira dimension zero arises by such a surgery only if it is diffeomorphic to a blowup either of the K3 surface, the Enriques surface, or a member of a particular family of T^2-bundles over T^2 each having b_1=2.
In this paper, the symplectic genus for any 2-dimensional class in a 4-manifold admitting a symplectic structure is introduced, and its relation with the minimal genus is studied. It is used to describe which classes in rational and irrational ruled manifolds are realized by connected symplectic surfaces. In particular, we completely determine which classes with square at least -1 in such manifolds can be represented by embedded spheres. Moreover, based on a new characterization of the action of the diffeomorphism group on the intersection forms of a rational manifold, we are able to determine…
Let $M$ be either $S^2\times S^2$ or the one point blow-up $\cp# \bcp$ of $\cp$. In both cases $M$ carries a family of symplectic forms $\om_\la$, where $\la > -1$ determines the cohomology class $[\om_\la]$. This paper calculates the rational (co)homology of the group $G_\la$ of symplectomorphisms of $(M,\om_\la)$ as well as the rational homotopy type of its classifying space $BG_\la$. It turns out that each group $G_\la$ contains a finite collection $K_k, k = 0,...,\ell = \ell(\la)$, of finite dimensional Lie subgroups that generate its homotopy. We show that these subgroups "asymptotically …
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 prove that the group of Hamiltonian automorphisms of a symplectic 4-manifold contains only finitely many conjugacy classes of maximal compact tori with respect to the action of the full symplectomorphism group. We also extend to rational and ruled manifolds a result of Kedra which asserts that, if $M$ is a simply connected symplectic 4-manifold with $b_{2}\geq 3$, and if $\widetilde{M}_δ$ denotes a blow-up of $M$ of small enough capacity $δ$, then the rational cohomology algebra of the Hamiltonian group of $\widetilde{M}_δ)$ is not finitely generated. Both results are based on the fact that…
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 first study symplectically embedded curves in symplectic surfaces with high self-intersection numbers compared to their genus. We prove in two different ways that such a curve completely determines both the diffeomorphism type of the surface in which it is embedded and the embedding itself. The first proof uses Seiberg-Witten theory whereas the second one only involves pseudoholomorphic techniques. We deduce from this result that the contact $3$-manifolds naturally associated with those curves admit a unique strong symplectic filling up to diffeomorphism. We next examine symplectic sections…
In this paper we show that the Seiberg--Witten invariant is zero for all smooth 4--manifolds with $b_+{>}1$ which admit circle actions that have at least one fixed point. Furthermore, we show that all symplectic 4--manifolds which admit circle actions with fixed points are rational or ruled, and thus admit a symplectic circle action.
We study generators of the fundamental group of the group of symplectomorphisms $\mathrm{Symp}({\mathbb C\mathbb P}^2\#\,5\overline{\mathbb C\mathbb P}\,\!^2, ω)$ for some particular symplectic forms. It was observed by J. Kȩdra that there are many symplectic 4-manifolds $(M, ω)$, where $M$ is neither rational nor ruled, that admit no circle action and $π_1 (\mathrm{Ham} (M,ω))$ is nontrivial. On the other hand, it follows from previous results that the fundamental group of the group $\mathrm{Symp}_h({\mathbb C\mathbb P}^2\#\,k\,\overline{\mathbb C\mathbb P}\,\!^2, ω)$, of symplectomorphisms t…
In this paper, we study the curve cone of an almost complex $4$-manifold which is tamed by a symplectic form. In particular, we prove the cone theorem as in Mori theory for all such manifolds using the Seiberg-Witten theory. For small rational surfaces and minimal ruled surfaces, we study the configuration of negative curves. We define abstract configuration of negative curves, which records the homological and intersection information of curves. Combinatorial blowdown is the main tool to study these configurations. As an application of our investigation of the curve cone, we prove the Nakai-M…
Consider any symplectic ruled surface $(M^g_λ,ω_λ)$ given by $(Σ_g \times S^2, λσ_{Σ_g} \oplus σ_{S^2})$. We compute all natural equivariant Gromov-Witten invariants $EGW_{g,0}(M^g_λ;H_k, A-kF)$ for all hamiltonian circle actions $H_k$ on $M^g_λ$, where $A=[Σ_g \times pt]$ and $F= [pt \times S^2]$. We use these invariants to show the nontriviality of certain higher order Whitehead products that live in the homotopy groups of the symplectomorphism groups $G_λ^g$, $g \geq 0$. Our results are sharper when $g=0,1$ and enable us to answer a question posed by D.McDuff in the case $g=1$ and provide a…
This paper is intended both an introduction to the algebraic geometry of holomorphic Poisson brackets, and as a survey of results on the classification of projective Poisson manifolds that have been obtained in the past twenty years. It is based on the lecture series delivered by the author at the Poisson 2016 Summer School in Geneva. The paper begins with a detailed treatment of Poisson surfaces, including adjunction, ruled surfaces and blowups, and leading to a statement of the full birational classification. We then describe several constructions of Poisson threefolds, outlining the classif…