Let X_1, X_2 be symplectic 4-manifolds containing symplectic surfaces F_1,F_2 of identical positive genus and opposite squares. Let Z denote the symplectic sum of X_1 and X_2 along the F_k. Using relative Gromov--Witten theory, we determine precisely when the symplectic 4-manifold Z is minimal (i.e., cannot be blown down); in particular, we prove that Z is minimal unless either: one of the X_k contains a (-1)-sphere disjoint from F_k; or one of the X_k admits a ruling with F_k as a section. As special cases, this proves a conjecture of Stipsicz asserting the minimality of fiber sums of Lefschetz fibrations, and implies that the non-spin examples constructed by Gompf in his study of the geography problem are minimal.
In this note we complete the discussion of minimality of symplectic fiber sums. We find, that for fiber sums along spheres the minimality of the sum is determined by the cases discussed by M. Usher and one additional case: If the sum is the result of the rational blow-down of a symplectic -4-sphere in X, then it is non-minimal if X contains a certain configuration of exceptional spheres in relation to this -4-sphere.
We prove that all minimal symplectic four-manifolds are essentially irreducible. We also clarify the relationship between holomorphic and symplectic minimality of Kähler surfaces. This leads to a new proof of the deformation-invariance of holomorphic minimality for complex surfaces with even first Betti number which are not Hirzebruch surfaces.
We give a short proof of a conjecture of Stipsicz on the minimality of fiber sums of Lefschetz fibrations, which was proved earlier by Usher. We then construct the first examples of genus g > 1 Lefschetz fibrations on minimal symplectic 4-manifolds which, up to diffeomorphisms of the summands, admit unique decompositions as fiber sums.
We construct an infinite family of odd-symplectic forms (also known as Hamiltonian structures) on the 3-sphere that do not admit a symplectic cobordism to the standard contact structure on the 3-sphere. This answers in the negative a question raised by Joel Fish motivated by the search for minimal characteristic flows.
We associate curves of isotropic, Lagrangian and coisotropic subspaces to higher order, one parameter variational problems. Minimality and conjugacy properties of extremals are described in terms of these curves.
Let (M, g, omega) be a compact, almost-Kaehler Einstein 4-manifold of negative star-scalar curvature. Then (M, omega) is a MINIMAL symplectic 4-manifold of general type. In particular, M cannot be differentiably decomposed as a connected sum N # (-CP_2).
We define a twisted version of Manolescu and Woodward's Symplectic Instanton homology, prove that this invariant fits into the framework of Wehrheim and Woodward's Floer Field theory, and describe its behaviour for connected sum and Dehn surgery.
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.
Gromov-Witten invariants of a symplectic manifold are a count of holomorphic curves. We describe a formula expressing the GW invariants of a symplectic sum $X# Y$ in terms of the relative GW invariants of $X$ and $Y$. This formula has several applications to enumerative geometry. As one application, we obtain new relations in the cohomology ring of the moduli space of complex structures on a genus g Riemann surface with n marked points.
In this paper we investigate a family of Hamiltonian-minimal Lagrangian submanifolds in ${\mathbb C}^m$, ${\mathbb C}P^m$ and other symplectic toric manifolds constructed from intersections of real quadrics. In particular, we explain the nature of this phenomenon by proving H-minimality in a more conceptual way, and prove minimality of the same submanifolds in the corresponding moment-angle manifolds.
In this paper we determine the integral homology and cohomology groups of a closed 4-manifold X obtained as the generalized fibre sum of two closed 4-manifolds M and N along embedded surfaces of genus g and self-intersection zero. If the homologies of the 4-manifolds are torsion free and the surfaces represent indivisible homology classes, we derive a formula for the intersection form of X. If in addition the 4-manifolds M and N are symplectic and the surfaces symplectically embedded we derive a formula for the canonical class of the symplectic fibre sum.
We give characterizations of a finite group $G$ acting symplectically on a rational surface ($\mathbb{C}P^2$ blown up at two or more points). In particular, we obtain a symplectic version of the dichotomy of $G$-conic bundles versus $G$-del Pezzo surfaces for the corresponding $G$-rational surfaces, analogous to a classical result in algebraic geometry. Besides the characterizations of the group $G$ (which is completely determined for the case of $\mathbb{C}P^2\# N\overline{\mathbb{C}P^2}$, $N=2,3,4$), we also investigate the equivariant symplectic minimality and equivariant symplectic cone of…
In this note we discuss the effect of the symplectic sum along spheres in symplectic four-manifolds on the Kodaira dimension of the underlying symplectic manifold. We find that the Kodaira dimension is non-decreasing. Moreover, we are able to obtain precise results on the structure of the manifold obtained from the blow down of an embedded symplectic -4-sphere.
The natural sum operation for symplectic manifolds is defined by gluing along codimension two submanifolds. Specifically, let X be a symplectic 2n-manifold with a symplectic (2n-2)-submanifold V. Given a similar pair (Y,W) with a symplectic identification V=W and a complex anti-linear isomorphism between the normal bundles of V and W, we can form the symplectic sum Z=X # Y. This note announces a general formula for computing the Gromov-Witten invariants of the sum Z in terms of relative Gromov-Witten invariants of (X,V) and (Y,W). Two applications are presented: a short derivation of the Capor…
We consider the existence of symplectic and conformal symplectic codimension-one foliations on closed manifolds of dimension at least 5. Our main theorem, based on a recent result by Bertelson-Meigniez, states that in dimension at least 7 any almost contact structure is homotopic to a conformal symplectic foliation. In dimension 5 we construct explicit conformal symplectic foliations on every closed, simply-connected, almost contact manifold, as well as honest symplectic foliations on a large subset of them. Lastly, via round-connected sums, we obtain, on closed manifolds, examples of conforma…
Two constructions of contact manifolds are presented: (i) products of S^1 with manifolds admitting a suitable decomposition into two exact symplectic pieces and (ii) fibre connected sums along isotropic circles. Baykur has found a decomposition as required for (i) for all closed, oriented 4-manifolds. As a corollary, we can show that all closed, oriented 5-manifolds that are Cartesian products of lower-dimensional manifolds carry a contact structure. For symplectic 4-manifolds we exhibit an alternative construction of such a decomposition; this gives us control over the homotopy type of the co…
The recent example of Hanges: $P = \partial_t^2 + t^2Δ_x + \partial^2_{θ(x)}$ in $R^3$ is analytic hypoelliptic in the sense of germs but not in the strong sense in any neighborhood of the origin. And its characteristic variety is non-symplectic. We give a purely $L^2,$ and hence quite flexible, proof of this result and generalizations, and link it to, and contrast it with, the celebrated Baouendi-Goulaouic operator. We point out that the results are consistent with the conjecture of Treves.
In an article from 2008, A. Akhmedov and B. D. Park constructed irreducible symplectic 4-manifolds homeomorphic but not diffeomorphic to the manifolds CP^2#3CP^2bar and 3CP^2#5CP^2bar. These manifolds are constructed by using generalized fibre sums. In this note we describe an explicit splitting of the second (co-)homology of these manifolds adapted to their construction as fibre sums. We also calculate the canonical classes of the symplectic structures. This gives a new proof for a formula derived by A. Akhmedov, R. I. Baykur and B. D. Park.
In this paper, we collect various structural results to determine when an integral homology $3$--sphere bounds an acyclic smooth $4$--manifold, and when this can be upgraded to a Stein manifold. In a different direction we study whether smooth embedding of connected sums of lens spaces in $\mathbb{C}^2$ can be upgraded to a Stein embedding, and determined that this never happens.
One generalizes the notion of Maslov class of lagrangian embeddings to symplectic vector spaces for the compact case. Topological and geometrical properties of the generalized class is discussed. Certain relationship with the minimality problem is established. Applications are presented.
We study certain symplectic quotients of n-fold products of complex projective m-space by the unitary group acting diagonally. After studying nonemptiness and smoothness these quotients we construct the action-angle variables, defined on an open dense subset of an integrable Hamiltonian system. The semiclassical quantization of this system reproduces formulas from the representation theory of the unitary group.
By a result of Eliashberg, every symplectic filling of a three-dimensional contact connected sum is obtained by performing a boundary connected sum on another symplectic filling. We prove a partial generalization of this result for subcritical contact surgeries in higher dimensions: given any contact manifold that arises from another contact manifold by subcritical surgery, its belt sphere is null-bordant in the oriented bordism group $ΩSO^*(W)$ of any symplectically aspherical filling $W$, and in dimension five, it will even be nullhomotopic. More generally, if the filling is not aspherical b…
We exhibit many examples of closed symplectic manifolds on which there is an autonomous Hamiltonian whose associated flow has no nonconstant periodic orbits (the only previous explicit example in the literature was the torus T^2n (n\geq 2) with an irrational symplectic structure). The underlying smooth manifolds of our examples include, for instance: the K3 surface and also infinitely many smooth manifolds homeomorphic but not diffeomorphic to it; infinitely many minimal four-manifolds having any given finitely-presented group as their fundamental group; and simply connected minimal four-manif…
We generalize the familiar notions of overtwistedness and Giroux torsion in 3-dimensional contact manifolds, defining an infinite hierarchy of local filling obstructions called planar torsion, whose integer-valued order $k \ge 0$ can be interpreted as measuring a gradation in "degrees of tightness" of contact manifolds. We show in particular that any contact manifold with planar torsion admits no contact type embeddings into any closed symplectic 4-manifold, and has vanishing contact invariant in Embedded Contact Homology, and we give examples of contact manifolds that have planar k-torsion fo…
We will show that the cotangent bundle of a manifold whose free loopspace homology grows exponentially is not symplectomorphic to any smooth affine variety. We will also show that the unit cotangent bundle of such a manifold is not Stein fillable by a Stein domain whose completion is symplectomorphic to a smooth affine variety. For instance, these results hold for end connect sums of simply connected manifolds whose cohomology with coefficients in some field has at least two generators. We use an invariant called the growth rate of symplectic homology to prove this result.
The main purpose of this paper is to study the length minimizing property of Hamiltonian paths on closed symplectic manifolds $(M,ω)$ such that there are no spherical homology class $A \in H_2(M)$ with $$ ω(A) > 0 \quad \text{and} \quad -n \leq c_1(A) < 0, $$ which we call {\it very strongly semi-positive}. We introduce the notion of {\it positively $μ$-undertwisted} Hamiltonian paths and prove that any positively undertwisted quasi-autonomous Hamiltonian path is length minimizing in its homotopy class as long as it has a fixed maximum and a fixed minimum point that are generically under-twist…
This article is a result of the AIM workshop on Moment Maps and Surjectivity in Various Geometries (August 9 - 13, 2004) organized by T.Holm, E.Lerman and S.Tolman. At that workshop I was introduced to the work of T.Hausel and N.Proudfoot on hyperkahler quotients [HP]. One interesting feature of their article is that they consider integrals of equivariant forms over non-compact symplectic manifolds which do not converge, so they formally {\em define} these integrals as sums over the zeroes of vector fields, as in the Berline-Vergne localization formula. In this article we introduce a geometric…
We prove that every non-degenerate Reeb flow on a closed contact manifold $M$ admitting a strong symplectic filling $W$ with vanishing first Chern class carries at least two geometrically distinct closed orbits provided that the positive equivariant symplectic homology of $W$ satisfies a mild condition. Under further assumptions, we establish the existence of two geometrically distinct closed orbits on any contact finite quotient of $M$. Several examples of such contact manifolds are provided, like displaceable ones, unit cosphere bundles, prequantization circle bundles, Brieskorn spheres and …
