The homotopy type of the space of symplectic balls in rational ruled 4-manifolds (Q1006152)

\textit{F.~Lalonde} and \textit{D.~McDuff} in [Contact and symplectic geometry. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.~Publ.~Newton Inst. 8, 3--42 (1996; Zbl 0867.53028)] classified rational and ruled symplectic \(4\)-manifolds and showed that any such manifold is symplectomorphic to either the topologically trivial \(S^2\)-bundle over \(S^2\), \(M^0_\mu= (S^2\times S^2,\omega^0_\mu)\), where \(\omega^0_\mu\) is the split symplectic form \(\omega(\mu)\oplus\omega(1)\) with area \(\mu\geq 1\) for the first \(S^2\)-factor and with area \(1\) for the second factor, or the topologically non-trivial \(S^2\)-bundle over \(S^2\), \(M^1_\mu=(S^2\times S^2,\omega^1_\mu)\), diffeomorphic to \(\mathbb CP^2\#\mathbb CP^2\) equipped with the standard Kähler form \(\omega^1_\mu\). If \((M^ 4,\omega)\) is a \(4\)-dimensional rational ruled symplectic manifold, \(w_ M\) its Gromov width, and \(\text{Emb}_\omega(B^ 4(c),M)\) is the space of symplectic embeddings of the standard ball of radius \(r\) into \((M^ 4,\omega)\), than there exists a critical capacity \(c_{\text{crit}}\in(0,w_ M]\) such that, for all \(c\in(0,c_{\text{crit}})\), the embedding space \(\text{Emb}_\omega(B^ 4(c),M)\) is homotopy equivalent to the space of symplectic frames \(\text{SFr}(M)\), and that the homotopy type of \(\text{Emb}_\omega(B^ 4(c),M)\) changes when \(c\) reaches \(c_{\text{crit}}\) and remains constant for all \(c\in[c_{\text{crit}},w_ M)\). Let \(M^ i_\mu\) be a normalized rational ruled \(4\)-manifold with \(\mu>1\) and \(c\in[c_{\text{crit}},1)\), \(B^ 4(c)\subset\mathbb R^ 4\) be the closed standard ball of radius \(r\) and capacity \(c=\pi r^ 2\) equipped with the restriction of the symplectic structure \(\omega_{\text{st}}=dx_ 1\wedge dy_ 1+dx_ 2\wedge dy_ 2\) of \(\mathbb R^ 4\), \(\text{Emb}^ i_{\omega}(c,\mu)\) be the space of all symplectic embeddings of \(B^ 4(c)\) in \(M^ i_\mu\), and \(\mathfrak{I}\text{Emb}^ i_\omega(c,\mu)\) be the space of subsets of \(M^ i_\mu\) that are images of maps belonging to \(\text{Emb}^ i_\mu(c ,\mu)\) defined as the topological quotient \(\text{Symp}(B^ 4(c)) \hookrightarrow \text{Emb}^ i_\omega(c,\mu) \rightarrow \mathfrak{I}\,\text{Emb}^ i_\omega(c,\mu)\), where \(\text{Symp}(B^ 4(c))\) is the group of symplectic diffeomorphisms of the closed ball with no restrictions on the behavior on the boundary. The authors give the rational homotopy type of \(\mathfrak{I}\,\text{Emb}^ i_\omega(c,\mu)\), expressed as a nontrivial fibration whose base and fiber are explicitly given. Also, they compute the minimal model of \(\mathfrak{I}\,\text{Emb}^ i_\omega(c,\mu)\) and the rational cohomology ring of \(\mathfrak{I}\,\text{Emb}^ i_\omega(c,\mu)\). In particular, these results imply that if \(c\in [c_{\text{crit}},1)\), then the topological space \(\mathfrak{I}\,\text{Emb}^ i_\omega(c,\mu)\) does not have the homotopy type of a finite dimensional \(\text{CW}\)-complex.