Strong symplectic fillability of contact torus bundles (Q1663792)

A smooth plane field \(\xi\) on a 3-manifold \(M\) which is locally defined by a 1-form \(\alpha\) such that \(\alpha\wedge d\alpha\neq 0\) is called a contact structure. An embedded disc \(D\to M\) in a contact manifold \((M,\xi)\) is called overtwisted if \(T_pD=\xi(p)\) for all points \(p\in\partial D\). A contact structure is tight if there is no overtwisted disc, otherwise it is overtwisted. If \((M,\xi)\) is a contact manifold and \((Y,\omega)\) is a symplectic manifold with \(\partial Y=M\), then we say that \((Y,\omega)\) fills \((M,\xi)\), or that \((M,\xi)\) is fillable, if some compatibility conditions on \(\xi\) and \(\omega\) are satisfied. A contact manifold \((M,\xi)\) is weakly symplectically fillable if \(\omega|_{\xi}\) is nondegenerate, and \((M,\xi)\) is stongly symplectically fillable if there is a Liouville vector field \(X\), outward on \(\partial Y\), with \(\xi=\text{ker}(i_X\omega|_{M})\). A \(4\)-manifold \(Y\) is said to be a Stein filling of a closed contact \(3\)-manifold \((M,\xi)\) if \(Y\) is the sub-level set of a plurisubharmonic function on a Stein surface and the contact structure induced on \(\partial Y\) by complex tangencies is contactomorphic to \((M,\xi)\). If \(A\in SL(2,\mathbb Z)\), then \(M_A\) is the \(T^2\)-bundle over \(S^1\) with monodromy \(A\) which is obtained from \(T^2\times I=\mathbb R^2/\mathbb Z\times[0,1]\). If \(|\text{tr}(A)|<2\), respectively \(|\text{tr}(A)|=2\) or \(|\text{tr}(A)|>2\), then \(A\) and the torus bundle \(M_A\) are called elliptic, respectively parabolic or hyperbolic. If \(|\text{tr}(A)|>0\), respectively \(|\text{tr}(A)|<0\), then \(A\) and the torus bundle \(M_A\) are called positive, respectively negative. For \(n\in\mathbb Z\) and the monodromy \(-T^n\) the torus bundles \(M_n=M_{-T^n}\) constitute all negative parabolic torus bundles, and \(\xi_{-T^n}=\xi_n\) is the contact structure on \(M_n\). In this paper, the authors study strong symplectic fillability and Stein fillability of some tight contact structures on negative parabolic and negative hyperbolic torus bundles over the circle. When \(n\geq -3\), \(\xi_n\) is Stein fillable, and for \(-4\leq n\leq -1\), \(\xi_n\) is strongly symplecticly and Stein fillable. The main result of the paper states that if \(n\leq -5\), then \(\xi_n\) is not strongly symplecticly fillable. For the universally tight contact structure \(\xi\) with twisting \(\pi \) in \(S^1\)-direction on a negative hyperbolic torus bundle, the authors give a necessary condition for \(\xi\) being strongly symplectically fillable. For the virtually overtwisted tight contact structure on the negative parabolic torus bundle with monodromy \(-T^n\), \(n<0\), the authors prove that it is Stein fillable.