We construct a version of rational Symplectic Field Theory for pairs $(X,L)$, where $X$ is an exact symplectic manifold, where $L\subset X$ is an exact Lagrangian submanifold with components subdivided into $k$ subsets, and where both $X$ and $L$ have cylindrical ends. The theory associates to $(X,L)$ a $\Z$-graded chain complex of vector spaces over $\Z_2$, filtered with $k$ filtration levels. The corresponding $k$-level spectral sequence is invariant under deformations of $(X,L)$ and has the following property: if $(X,L)$ is obtained by joining a negative end of a pair $(X',L')$ to a positive end of a pair $(X'',L'')$, then there are natural morphisms from the spectral sequences of $(X',L')$ and of $(X'',L'')$ to the spectral sequence of $(X,L)$. As an application, we show that if $Λ\subset Y$ is a Legendrian submanifold of a contact manifold then the spectral sequences associated to $(Y\times\R,Λ_k^s\times\R)$, where $Y\times\R$ is the symplectization of $Y$ and where $Λ_k^s\subset Y$ is the Legendrian submanifold consisting of $s$ parallel copies of $Λ$ subdivided into $k$ subsets, give Legendrian isotopy invariants of $Λ$.
We extend the definition of Lagrangian quantum homology to monotone Lagrangian cobordism and establish its general algebraic properties. In particular we develop a relative version of Lagrangian quantum homology associated to a cobordism relative to a part of its boundary and study relations of this invariant to the ambient quantum homology.
We study Lagrangian cobordism groups of oriented surfaces of genus greater than two. We compute the immersed oriented Lagrangian cobordism group of these surfaces. We show that a variant of this group, with relations given by unobstructed immersed Lagrangian cobordisms computes the Grothendieck group of the derived Fukaya category. The proof relies on an argument of Abouzaid.
We show that under some topological assumptions, an exact Lagrangian cobordism $(W; L_{0}, L_{1})$ of dimension $dim(W) >5$ is a Lagrangian pseudo-isotopy. This result is a weaker form of a conjecture proposed by Biran and Cornea, which states that any exact Lagrangian cobordism is Hamiltonian isotopic to a Lagrangian suspension.
This paper gives methods for understanding invariants of symplectic quotients. The symplectic quotients considered here are compact symplectic manifolds (or more generally orbifolds), which arise as the symplectic quotients of a symplectic manifold by a compact torus. (A companion paper examines symplectic quotients by a nonabelian group, showing how to reduce to the maximal torus.) Let X be a symplectic manifold, with a Hamiltonian action of a compact torus T. The main topological result of this paper describes an explicit cobordism that exists between a symplectic quotient of X by T, and a c…
We introduce new pseudo-metrics on spaces of Lagrangian submanifolds of a symplectic manifold $(M,ω)$ by considering areas associated to projecting Lagrangian cobordisms in $\mathbb{C} \times M$ to the "time-energy plane" $\mathbb{C}$. We investigate the non-degeneracy properties of these pseudo-metrics, reflecting the rigidity and flexibility aspects of Lagrangian cobordisms.
We study the following quantitative phenomenon in symplectic topology: In many situations, if a Lagrangian cobordism is sufficiently small (in a sense specified below) then its topology is to a large extend determined by its boundary. This principle allows us to derive several homological uniqueness results for small Lagrangian cobordisms. In particular, under the smallness assumption, we prove homological uniqueness of the class of Lagrangian cobordisms which, by Biran-Cornea's Lagrangian cobordism theory, induces operations on a version of the derived Fukaya category. We also establish a lin…
We extend parts of the Lagrangian spectral invariants package recently developed by Leclercq and Zapolsky to the theory of Lagrangian cobordism developed by Biran and Cornea. This yields a nondegenerate Lagrangian "spectral metric" which bounds the Lagrangian "cobordism metric" (recently introduced by Cornea and Shelukhin) from below. It also yields a new numerical Lagrangian cobordism invariant as well as new ways of computing certain asymptotic Lagrangian spectral invariants explicitly.
Floer theory for Lagrangian cobordisms was developed by Biran and Cornea to study the triangulated structure of the derived Fukaya category of monotone symplectic manifolds. This paper explains how to use the language of stops to study Lagrangian cobordisms in Liouville manifolds and the associated exact triangles in the derived wrapped Fukaya category. Furthermore, we compute the cobordism groups of non-compact Riemann surfaces of finite type.
We prove a Seifert-van Kampen theorem for Legendrian submanifolds and exact Lagrangian cobordisms, and use it to calculate the change in the DGA caused by critical Legendrian ambient surgery.
To investigate the rigidity and flexibility of Lagrangian cobordisms between Legendrian submanifolds, we investigate the minimal length of such a cobordism, which is a $1$-dimensional measurement of the non-cylindrical portion of the cobordism. Our primary tool is a set of real-valued capacities for a Legendrian submanifold, which are derived from a filtered version of Legendrian Contact Homology. Relationships between capacities of Legendrians at the ends of a Lagrangian cobordism yield lower bounds on the length of the cobordism. We apply the capacities to Lagrangian cobordisms realizing ver…
Given an exact Lagrangian $L$ of an exact symplectic manifold $(M,dλ)$, Cornea and Shelukhin recently introduced a remarkable "cobordism metric" $d_c$ on the exact Lagrangian cobordism class $\mathcal{L}(L)$ of $L$. In this note we show that the Liouville flow of $(M,dλ)$ induces a flow on $(\mathcal{L}(L),d_c)$ which expands cobordism distances. In particular we deduce that $(\mathcal{L}(L),d_c)$ has infinite diameter whenever the Liouville flow is complete. We also discuss (Hamiltonian and Lagrangian) Hofer-geometric versions of our result. The proof only uses elementary differential geometr…
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…
In this article we extend the construction of the Floer fundamental group to the monotone Lagrangian setting and use it to study the fundamental group of a Lagrangian cobordism $W\subset (\mathbb{C}\times M, ω_{st}\oplusω)$ between two Lagrangian submanifolds $L, L'\subset ( M, ω)$. We show that under natural conditions the inclusions $L,L'\hookrightarrow W$ induce surjective maps $π_{1}(L)\twoheadrightarrowπ_{1}(W)$, $π_{1}(L')\twoheadrightarrowπ_{1}(W)$ and when the previous maps are injective then $W$ is an h-cobordism.
This paper discusses the cobordism of Lagrangian submanifolds (in the monotone setting) and structures it as a category that is related in a functorial way to an appropriate (derived) Fukaya category. Are also discussed obstructions to cobordism based on properties of Lagrangian quantum homology, relations to Lagrangian surgery, as well as examples of non-isotopic but cobordant Lagrangians. This is a revision of our earlier preprint from September 2011.
Capacities that provide both qualitative and quantitative obstructions to the existence of a Lagrangian cobordism between two $(n-1)$-dimensional submanifolds in parallel hyperplanes of $\mathbb{R}^{2n}$ are defined using the theory of generating families. Qualitatively, these capacities show that, for example, in $\mathbb R^4$ there is no Lagrangian cobordism between two $\infty$-shaped curves with a negative crossing when the lower end is "smaller". Quantitatively, when the boundary of a Lagrangian ball lies in a hyperplane of $\mathbb{R}^{2n}$, the capacity of the boundary gives a restricti…
In this note we make several observations concerning symplectic cobordisms. Among other things we show that every contact 3-manifold has infinitely many concave symplectic fillings and that all overtwisted contact 3-manifolds are ``symplectic cobordism equivalent.''
Let $Λ, Λ'$ be a pair of closed Legendrian submanifolds in a closed contact manifold $(Y, ξ= Ker(α))$ related by a Legendrian cobordism $W\subset (\mathbb{C}\times Y, \tildeξ=Ker(-y dx +α))$. In this note, we show that in the hypertight setting, if $Λ$ intersects a closed, weakly exact or monotone pre-Lagrangian $P\subset Y$ for reasons of Floer homology, then so does $Λ'$.
In this paper we study the interplay between Lagrangian cobordisms and stability conditions. We show that any stability condition on the derived Fukaya category $D\mathcal{F}uk(M)$ of a symplectic manifold $(M,ω)$ induces a stability condition on the derived Fukaya category of Lagrangian cobordisms $D\mathcal{F}uk(\mathbb{C} \times M)$. In addition, using stability conditions, we provide general conditions under which the homomorphism $Θ: Ω_{Lag}(M)\to K_0(D\mathcal{F}uk(M))$, introduced by Biran and Cornea, is an isomorphism. This yields a better understanding of how stability conditions affe…
For $1$-dimensional Legendrian submanifolds of $1$-jet spaces, we extend the functorality of the Legendrian contact homology DG-algebra (DGA) from embedded exact Lagrangian cobordisms, as in \cite{EHK}, to a class of immersed exact Lagrangian cobordisms by considering their Legendrian lifts as conical Legendrian cobordisms. To a conical Legendrian cobordism $Σ$ from $Λ_-$ to $Λ_+$, we associate an immersed DGA map, which is a diagram $$\alg(Λ_+) \stackrel{f}{\rightarrow} \alg(Σ) \stackrel{i}{\hookleftarrow} \alg(Λ_-), $$ where $f$ is a DGA map and $i$ is an inclusion map. This construction giv…
We compute the Lagrangian cobordism group of the standard symplectic 2-torus and prove that it is isomorphic to the Grothendieck group of its derived Fukaya category. The proofs use homological mirror symmetry for the 2-torus.
We construct a product on the Floer complex associated to a pair of Lagrangian cobordisms. More precisely, given three exact transverse Lagrangian cobordisms in the symplectization of a contact manifold, we define a map $\mathfrak{m}_2$ by a count of rigid pseudo-holomorphic disks with boundary on the cobordisms and having punctures asymptotic to intersection points and Reeb chords of the negative Legendrian ends of the cobordisms. More generally, to a $(d+1)$-tuple of exact transverse Lagrangian cobordisms we associate a map $\mathfrak{m}_d$ such that the family $(\mathfrak{m}_d)_{d\geq1}$ ar…
We investigate the interactions between the Legendrian satellite construction and the existence of exact, orientable Lagrangian cobordisms between Legendrian knots. Given Lagrangian cobordisms between two Legendrian knots and between two Legendrian tangles, we construct a Lagrangian cobordism between Legendrian satellites of the knots by the closures of the tangles, with extra twists on both the top and the bottom satellite to compensate for the genus of the cobordism. If the original cobordisms were decomposable, then a decomposable cobordism between satellites exists as well, again with extr…
We study the relation of an embedded Lagrangian cobordism between two closed, orientable Legendrian submanifolds of R^{2n+1}. More precisely, we investigate the behavior of the Thurston-Bennequin number and (linearized) Legendrian contact homology under this relation. The result about the Thurston-Bennequin number can be considered as a generalization of the result of Chantraine which holds when n = 1. In addition, we provide a few constructions of Lagrangian cobordisms and prove that there are infinitely many pairs of exact Lagrangian cobordant and not pairwise Legendrian isotopic Legendrian …
In this paper, we present new obstructions to the existence of Lagrangian cobordisms in $\mathbb{R}^4$ that depend only on the enriched knot diagrams of the boundary knots or links, using holomorphic curve techniques. We define enriched knot diagrams for generic smooth links. The existence of Lagrangian cobordisms gives a well-defined transitive relation on equivalence classes of enriched knot diagrams that is a strict partial order when restricted to exact enriched knot diagrams To establish obstructions we study $1$-dimensional moduli spaces of holomorphic disks with corners that have bounda…
Given an exact symplectic manifold M and a support Lagrangian Λ, we construct an infinity-category Lag, which we conjecture to be equivalent (after specialization of the coefficients) to the partially wrapped Fukaya category of M relative to Λ. Roughly speaking, the objects of Lag are Lagrangian branes inside of M x T*(R^n), for large n, and the morphisms are Lagrangian cobordisms that are non-characteristic with respect to Λ. The main theorem of this paper is that Lag is a stable infinity-category, so that its homotopy category is triangulated, with mapping cones given by an elementary constr…
We construct four-dimensional symplectic cobordisms between contact three-manifolds generalizing an example of Eliashberg. One key feature is that any handlebody decomposition of one of these cobordisms must involve three-handles. The other key feature is that these cobordisms contain chains of symplectically embedded two-spheres of square zero. This, together with standard gauge theory, is used to show that any contact three-manifold of non-zero torsion (in the sense of Giroux) cannot be strongly symplectically fillable. John Etnyre pointed out to the author that the same argument together wi…
We obtain upper and lower bounds for the relative Gromov width of Lagrangian cobordisms between Legendrian submanifolds. Upper bounds arise from the existence of $J$-holomorphic disks with boundary on the Lagrangian cobordism that pass through the center of any given symplectically embedded ball. The areas of these disks --- and hence the sizes of these balls --- are controlled by a real-valued fundamental capacity, a quantity derived from the algebraic structure of filtered linearized Legendrian Contact Homology of the Legendrian at the top of the cobordism. Lower bounds come from explicit co…
We complete the classification of symplectic fillings of tight contact structures on lens spaces. In particular, we show that any symplectic filling $X$ of a virtually overtwisted contact structure on $L(p,q)$ has another symplectic structure that fills the universally tight contact structure on $L(p,q)$. Moreover, we show that the Stein filling of $L(p,q)$ with maximal second homology is given by the plumbing of disk bundles. We also consider the question of constructing symplectic cobordisms between lens spaces and report some partial results.
We study holomorphic spheres in certain symplectic cobordisms and derive information about periodic Reeb orbits in the concave end of these cobordisms from the non-compactness of the relevant moduli spaces. We use this to confirm the strong Weinstein conjecture (predicting the existence of null-homologous Reeb links) for various higher-dimensional contact manifolds, including contact type hypersurfaces in subcritical Stein manifolds and in some cotangent bundles. The quantitative character of this result leads to the definition of a symplectic capacity.
Embedded Lagrangian cobordisms between Legendrian submanifolds are produced from isotopy, spinning, and handle attachment constructions that employ the technique of generating families. Moreover, any Legendrian with a generating family has an immersed Lagrangian filling with a compatible generating family. These constructions are applied in several directions, in particular to a non-classical geography question: any graded group satisfying a duality condition can be realized as the generating family homology of a connected Legendrian submanifold in R^{2n+1} or in the 1-jet space of any compact…
We prove that Manolescu and Woodward's Symplectic Instanton homology, and its twisted versions are natural, and define maps associated to four dimensional cobordisms within this theory. This allows one to define representations of the mapping class group and the fundamental group of a 3-manifold, and to have a geometric interpretation of the maps appearing in the long exact sequence for symplectic instanton homology, together with vanishing criterions.
We show that the pre-order defined on the category of contact manifolds by arbitrary symplectic cobordisms is considerably less rigid than its counterparts for exact or Stein cobordisms: in particular, we exhibit large new classes of contact 3-manifolds which are symplectically cobordant to something overtwisted, or to the tight 3-sphere, or which admit symplectic caps containing symplectically embedded spheres with vanishing self-intersection. These constructions imply new and simplified proofs of several recent results involving fillability, planarity and non-separating contact type embeddin…
The cobordism ring of symplectic manifolds defined by V.L. Ginzburg is shown to be isomorphic to the Pontrjagin ring of complex-oriented manifolds with free circle actions. This suggests an interpretation of the formal group law of complex cobordism, in terms of a composition-law on semiclassical expansions. An appendix discusses related questions about cobordism of toric varieties.
A symplectic manifold $(M,ω)$ is called {\em (symplectically) uniruled} if there is a nonzero genus zero GW invariant involving a point constraint. We prove that symplectic uniruledness is invariant under symplectic blow-up and blow-down. This theorem follows from a general Relative/Absolute correspondence for a symplectic manifold together with a symplectic submanifold. A direct consequence is that symplectic uniruledness is a symplectic birational invariant. Here we use Guillemin and Sternberg's notion of cobordism as the symplectic analogue of the birational equivalence.
We define a unital $A_\infty$-category whose objects are exact Lagrangian cobordisms in the symplectization of $Y=P\times\mathbb{R}$, with negative cylindrical ends over Legendrians equipped with augmentations. The morphism spaces are given in terms of Floer complexes $Cth_+(Σ_0,Σ_1)$ which are versions of the Rabinowitz Floer complex defined by Symplectic Field Theory (SFT) techniques.
Symplectic Khovanov homology is an invariant of oriented links defined by Seidel and Smith and conjectured to be isomorphic to Khovanov homology. I define morphisms (up to a global sign ambiguity) between symplectic Khovanov homology groups, corresponding to isotopy classes of smooth link cobordisms in 4D between a fixed pair of links. These morphisms define a functor from the category of links and such cobordisms to the category of abelian groups and group homomorphisms up to a sign ambiguity. This provides an extra structure for symplectic Khovanov homology and more generally an isotopy inva…
Given two open books with equal pages we show the existence of an exact symplectic cobordism whose negative end equals the disjoint union of the contact manifolds associated to the given open books, and whose positive end induces the contact manifold associated to the open book with the same page and concatenated monodromy. Using similar methods we show the existence of strong fillings for contact manifolds associated with doubled open books, a certain class of fiber bundles over the circle obtained by performing the binding sum of two open books with equal pages and inverse monodromies. From …
Lagrangian $k$-surgery modifies an immersed Lagrangian submanifold by topological $k$-surgery while removing a self-intersection. Associated to a $k$-surgery is a Lagrangian surgery trace cobordism. We prove that every Lagrangian cobordism is exactly homotopic to a concatenation of suspension cobordisms and Lagrangian surgery traces. This exact homotopy can be chosen with as small Hofer norm as desired. Furthermore, we show that each Lagrangian surgery trace bounds a holomorphic teardrop pairing the Morse cochain associated with the handle attachment to the Floer cochain generated by the self-…
We provide in this note two relevant examples of Lagrangian cobordisms. The first one gives an example of two exact Lagrangian submanifolds which cannot be composed in an exact fashion. The second one is an example of an exact Lagrangian cobordism on which all primitive of the Liouville form is not constant on the negative end and such that the positive end is a stabilisation whereas the negative end admits augmentations. These examples emphasise point (i) of the definition of exact Lagrangian cobordisms in [6]. In order to provide such examples we construct Lagrangian immersions with single d…
Lagrangian cobordisms between Legendrian knots arise in Symplectic Field Theory and impose an interesting and not well-understood relation on Legendrian knots. There are some known "elementary" building blocks for Lagrangian cobordisms that are smoothly the attachment of $0$- and $1$-handles. An important question is whether every pair of non-empty Legendrians that are related by a connected Lagrangian cobordism can be related by a ribbon Lagrangian cobordism, in particular one that is "decomposable" into a composition of these elementary building blocks. We will describe these and other combi…
We prove that the LOSS and GRID invariants of Legendrian links in knot Floer homology behave in certain functorial ways with respect to decomposable Lagrangian cobordisms in the symplectization of the standard contact structure on $\mathbb{R}^3$. Our results give new, computable, and effective obstructions to the existence of such cobordisms.
We introduce a new type of duality structure for $A_\infty$-categories called a relative weak Calabi-Yau pairing which generalizes Kontsevich and Soibelman's notion of a weak (proper) Calabi-Yau structure. We prove the existence of a relative weak Calabi-Yau pairing on Biran and Cornea's Fukaya category of Lagrangian cobordisms $\mathcal{F}uk_{\mathit{cob}}(\mathbb{C}\times M)$. Here $M$ is a symplectic manifold which is closed or tame at infinity. This duality structure on $\mathcal{F}uk_{\mathit{cob}}(\mathbb{C}\times M)$ extends the relative Poincaré duality satisfied by Floer complexes for…
We introduce constructions of exact Lagrangian cobordisms with cylindrical Legendrian ends and study their invariants which arise from Symplectic Field Theory. A pair $(X,L)$ consisting of an exact symplectic manifold $X$ and an exact Lagrangian cobordism $L\subset X$ which agrees with cylinders over Legendrian links $Λ_+$ and $Λ_-$ at the positive and negative ends induces a differential graded algebra (DGA) map from the Legendrian contact homology DGA of $Λ_+$ to that of $Λ_-$. We give a gradient flow tree description of the DGA maps for certain pairs $(X,L)$, which in turn yields a purely c…
We prove that a pairing between the Fukaya category and the oo-category of Lagrangian cobordisms respects mapping cones. This is another step toward constructing a lift of Fukaya categories to the level of spectra (in the sense of stable homotopy theory). As corollaries, we show that the map in our previous work from cobordism groups to Floer cohomology lifts to the level of spectra, and one also recovers some results of Biran and Cornea for what we call "vertically collared" cobordisms.
