Inequivalent contact structures on Boothby-Wang five-manifolds (Q358863)

The author studies contact structures on simply-connected 5-manifolds which arise as circle-bundles over simply-connected, symplectic 4-manifolds. Let \((M,\omega)\) be a symplectic 4-manifold and suppose that the symplectic form \(\omega\) represents an integral class \([\omega ]\) in \(H^2(M)\). If \(X\) is a circle-bundle over \(M\) for which the associated Euler class is equal to \([\omega ]\), then one can apply the Boothby-Wang construction from [\textit{W. M. Boothby} and \textit{H. C. Wang}, Ann. Math. (2) 68, 721--734 (1958; Zbl 0084.39204)] to obtain a contact structure \(\xi\) on the space \(X\). The Boothby-Wang construction provides an avenue for constructing and analyzing (potentially) different contact and almost contact structures arising on the same 5-manifold, and the central aim of this article is to do exactly that. To this end, the author establishes criteria for two contact structures arising on the same simply-connected 5-manifold via the Boothby-Wang construction to have equivalent underlying almost contact structures. The author further establishes relationships connecting the divisibility of equivalent Boothby-Wang contact structures to the divisibilities of the canonical classes of the underlying base (symplectic) 4-manifolds. As an application of these results, and using tools developed by \textit{Y. Eliashberg} et al. [in: Proceedings of a meeting by the GAFA 2000. Visions in mathematics--towards 2000. Tel Aviv, Israel, 1999. Part II. Basel: Birkhäuser. 560--673 (2000; Zbl 0989.81114)] from contact homology, the author constructs new examples of inequivalent contact structures arising on simply-connected 5-manifolds whose underlying almost contact structures agree.