Morse structures on partial open books with extendable monodromy (Q1622919)

Every contact 3-manifold is locally contactomorphic to the standard contact space \((\mathbb R^3,\xi_{\text{std}}=\ker(dz+x dy))\). All handles are assumed to be two-dimensional, so a 0-handle is a closed disc \(D^2\) and a 1-handle is a closed oriented 2-disc of the form \(P_0=[-1,1]\times[-1,1]\). To add a 1-handle to an oriented surface \(S\), an embedded 0-sphere \(\{p,q\}\in\partial S\) called the attaching sphere is selected and identified with a regular neighborhood of \(p,q\) with \([-1,1]\times\{-1,1\}\subset P_0\) in an orientation-reversing fashion. Any connected oriented surface with nonempty boundary can be constructed by successively attaching 1-handles to 0-handles. \((S,P)\) is a pair of compact oriented surfaces, with \(P\subset S\), \(S\) connected, and \(\partial S\neq \varnothing\). A handle structure compatible with \((S,P)\) is a sequence of 1-handles \(P_1\), \(P_2\),\dots,\(P_r\) in \(S\) such that \(P=P_1\cup\dots\cup P_r\) and \(S\) is obtained from \(\overline{S\backslash P}\) by successively attaching 1-handles \(P_i\). In [Trans. Am. Math. Soc. 370, No. 6, 3771--3802 (2018; Zbl 1451.53103)], \textit{D. Gay} and the first author developed the notion of a Morse structure on an open book as a tool for studying closed contact 3-manifolds. In this paper, the authors extend the notion of Morse structure to extendable partial open books in order to study contact 3-manifolds with convex boundary. An abstract partial open book is a triple \((S,P,h)\) where \((S,P)\) admits a compatible handle structure and \(h:P\to S\) is a homeomorphism onto its image such that \(h\) is the identity on \(A=\partial S\cap\partial P\). The function \(h\) is called a monodromy. From a partial open book \((S,P,h)\), the authors construct a satured 3-manifold \(M(S,P,h)\). A closed contact manifold \((M,\xi)\) is presented by the open book \((S,h)\) if it is contactomorphic to \(M(S,h)\). A contact manifold with convex boundary \((M,\Gamma,\xi)\) is presented by the partial open book \((S,P,h)\) if it is contactomorphic to \(M(S,P,h)\). A monodromy map \(h:P\to S\) is extendable if there exists a homeomorphism \(\widetilde h:S\to S\) such that \(\widetilde h_{|P}=h\). If \(\widetilde h:S\to S\) is a homeomorphism which restricts to the identity on \(\partial S\), then a smooth function \(F:S\times[-1,1]\to(-\infty,0]\) is called a Morse structure function for \(\widetilde h\) if: \begin{itemize} \item[(i)] \(F^{-1}(0)=\partial S\times[-1,1]\), \item[(ii)] for all \(t\in[-1,1]\), on the interior of the page \(S\times\{t\}\), \(F\) restricts to a Morse function \(f_t\) with finitely many index 0 critical points and no index 2 critical points, \item[(iii)] \(f_t\) is Morse-Smale, \item[(iv)] \(f_{-1}\circ h=f_1\), where \(h\) is viewed as a function \(S\times\{1\}\to S\times\{-1\}\). \end{itemize} A pair \((F,V)\) is said to be a Morse structure on \(M(S,P,h)\) if \(F\) is a Morse structure function and \(V\) is a vector field such that \begin{itemize} \item[(i)] the handle structures induced by \(f_t\) are isotopic for all \(t\in [\partial,1]\), \item[(ii)] \(V\) is tangent to each page, \item[(iii)] the restriction of \(V\) to the page \(S\times\{t\}\) is gradient-like for \(f_t\), \item[(iv)] near each component of the binding, there is a neighborhood parameterized by \((\rho,\mu,\lambda)\) such that \(B=\{\rho=0\}\), \(\mu=t\), \(F=-\rho^2\), and \(V=-(\rho/2)\partial_\rho\). \end{itemize} The authors show that every partial open book with extendable monodromy admits a Morse structure. Also, they prove that if \((M,\Gamma,\xi)\) is a contact 3-manifold with convex boundary, presented by the partial open book \((S,P,h)\), with binding \(B\), then there is a 2-complex \(\text{Skel}\subset\text{Int}M\) with the property that, after modifying \(\xi\) by an isotopy through contact structures presented by \((S,P,h)\), the interior of each connected component of \((M\backslash(\text{Skel}\cup B),\xi)\) is contactomorphic to a contact submanifold of \((W,\xi)\), where \(W=(0,\infty)\times S^1\times S^1\) and \(\xi=\ker{dz+x dy}\). Finally, it is shown that if \(\Lambda\) is a properly embedded Legendrian tangle in a contact 3-manifold \((M,\xi)\) disjoint from the binding \(B\) and transverse to \(\text{Skel}\), then the front associated to \(\Lambda\backslash\text{Skel}\) completely determines \(\Lambda\). Consequently, any two Legendrian tangles with the same front are equal. For the entire collection see [Zbl 1394.00023].