Tight contact structures and Seiberg-Witten invariants (Q1365350)

A contact structure on a smooth 3-manifold \(M\) is a distribution \(\xi\) of tangent 2-planes locally defined by \(\xi= \ker (\alpha)\) for a 1-form \(\alpha\) on \(M\) such that \(\alpha \wedge d\alpha\) is nowhere vanishing. Two contact structures on \(M\) are called isomorphic if there is a contactomorphism, that is a self-diffeomorphism of \(M\) sending one to the other. They are called homotopic if they can be connected in the space of 2-plane fields on \(M\), and they are called isotopic if they can be connected in the space of contact structures on \(M\). By a classical result of Gray isotopy is equivalent to the existence of a contactomorphism isotopic to the identity. There is a fundamental dichotomy among contact structures: \(\xi\) is called overtwisted if there is an embedded disc \(D\subset M\) such that its characteristic foliation (obtained by integrating the induced line field on \(D)\) contains a closed orbit with exactly one singular point inside. Otherwise, \(\xi\) is called tight. For overtwisted contact structures on closed 3-manifolds \textit{Y. Eliashberg} proved that the classification up to isotopy and up to homotopy coincides [ibid. 98, No. 3, 623-637 (1989; Zbl 0684.57012)]. On the other hand, the classification of tight contact structures is far from being understood: There are examples of homotopic and non-isomorphic [\textit{E. Giroux}, Ann. Sci. Éc. Norm. Supér. IV. Sér. 27, No. 6, 697-705 (1994; Zbl 0819.53018)], and also homotopic and isomorphic but non-isotopic contact structures on the 3-torus [\textit{Y. Eliashberg} and \textit{L. Polterovich}, Comment. Math. Helv. 69, No. 4, 512-522 (1994; Zbl 0853.57012)]. In the present paper, the authors prove that for any positive integer \(n\), there exist homology 3-spheres with at least \(n\) homotopic but non-isomorphic tight contact structures. The proof uses the induced tight contact structures on the boundary of Stein 4-manifolds defined by surgery on framed Legendrian links. Different Stein structures are shown to induce homotopic contact structures on the same homology 3-sphere, whereas for the detection of non-isotopic contact structures Seiberg-Witten theory is applied. The proof can be adopted to prove the following theorem (a different proof has been recently announced by Kronheimer and Mrowka): Let \(X\) be a smooth 4-manifold with boundary. Suppose \(J_1\), \(J_2\) are two Stein structures with boundary on \(X\) with associated \(\text{Spin}^c\)-structures \(\Theta_1\) and \(\Theta_2\). If the induced contact structures \(\xi_1\) and \(\xi_2\) on \(\partial X\) are isotopic, then \(\Theta_1\) and \(\Theta_2\) are isomorphic.