Lagrangian cobordisms between enriched knot diagrams (Q6171385)

The paper under review studies obstructions to the existence of relatively exact embedded Lagrangian cobordisms in \(\mathbb R^4\) whose ends are required to be cylinders over links in \(\mathbb R^3\) that are not necessarily required to be Legendrian. Enriched knot diagrams are studied, which are knot diagrams in \(\mathbb R^2\) together with topological data consisting of signs of quadrants near double points, and areas of bounded region in the complement of the knot diagram. The existence of relatively exact embedded Lagrangian cobordisms between two (equivalence classes of) enriched knot diagrams is shown to be a transitive relation, and a strict partial order when restricted to exact enriched knot diagrams. The main result of the paper under review is an obstruction to the existence of a relatively exact embedded Lagrangian cobordism between two enriched knot diagrams. There are two certain kinds of holomorphic disks called big and little, respectively. If there is a relatively exact embedded Lagrangian cobordism and a big disk, then it is proven that there must exist a little disk relative to the big disk that does not have larger area than the big disk. The proof of the main result is obtained by studying \(1\)-dimensional moduli spaces of holomorphic disks with corners that have boundary on the relatively exact embedded Lagrangian cobordism. Let \[ 8_{\pm}(\pi r^2) = \left\{(x_1,y_1,x_2) \mid x_1^2 + x_2^2 = r^2, \; y_1 = \pm 2x_1x_2\right\}, \] be an \(8\)-shaped curve in \(\mathbb R^3\). The following growing and shrinking behavior among enriched knot diagrams is observed. If there is a relatively exact Lagrangian cobordism from \(8_{\pm}(A)\) to \(8_{\pm}(B)\), then \(\pm A < \pm B\). Similar behavior is proven for some other knot diagrams.