Chekanov--Eliashberg invariant of Legendrian knots: Existence of augmentations (Q1399289)

The paper deals with Legendrian knots in the standard 3-dimensional contact space, i.e., smooth, non self-intersecting closed curves in \(\mathbb R^3\) with zero restriction of the standard contact form \(y dx- dz\). Besides classical integral invariants of Legendrian knots, such as the Maslov number and the Thurston-Bennequin number, a new invariant was constructed independently by \textit{Y. Chekanov} [Invent. Math. 150, 441-483 (2002; Zbl 1029.57011)] and \textit{Ya. Eliashberg} [Doc. Math., J. DMV, Extra Vol ICM Berlin 1998, vol. II, 327-338 (1998; Zbl 0913.53010)], in order to better distinguish such knots up to Legendrian isotopies. Chekanov's paper also introduces a working version of the Chekanov-Eliashberg invariant, based on a linearization of their complex, by means of a suitably defined augmentation (or graded augmentation). The present paper yields an easy-to-check sufficient condition on the existence of an augmentation (resp. graded augmentation), in terms of normal ruling (resp. graded normal ruling) of the front diagram. This allows to construct a large quantity of Legendrian knots for which an augmentation (or a graded augmentation) exists, and hence to provide many new examples of Legendrian knots distinguishable by the linearized version of the Chekanov-Eliashberg invariant. Moreover, the author gives notice of a future paper (in collaboration with T. Ishkhanov), proving the above sufficient conditions to be also necessary for the existence of augmentations. Finally, note that -- as the author points out -- \textit{Y. Chekanov} and \textit{P. Pushkar} [\textit{The combinatorics of Legendrian knots, Arnold conjecture and Legendrian knot invariants} (in Russian), preprint] have independently introduced and studied a notion equivalent to graded normal ruling, without taking into account relations between rulings and augmentations in the Chekanov-Eliashberg algebra.