Fibrations in symplectic topology (Q1129853)

This paper gives an excellent overview of the recent 4 years' achievements in symplectic topology and a discussion of the relevance of various aspects of symplectic fibrations. The author takes into account the very basic observation that every symplectic form on a \(2n\)-dimensional manifold is locally the Cartesian product of \(n\) area forms \(dx\wedge dy\) on \(\mathbb{R}^2\) and shows its global implications in symplectic topology. These implications range from symplectic rigidity and the general theory of symplectic fibrations (connections) introduced by \textit{V. Guillemin, E. Lerman} and \textit{S. Sternberg} [`Symplectic fibrations and multiplicity diagrams' (Cambridge University Press) (1996; Zbl 0870.58023)] to Donaldson's theorem on the existence of symplectic Lefschetz pencils, which are admitted by every closed symplectic manifold. In all the problems discussed in the paper, the author reflects the basic theme of symplectic topology which says that properties which hold locally are often valid more globally. The spectrum of motivating examples starts wit the Darboux theorem, Arnold's conjecture and ends with the mentioned local product of the symplectic form, whose influence on symplectic topology is discussed.