Floer homology and fractional Dehn twists (Q1684655)

The article under review gives a bound on the fractional Dehn twist coefficient of the monodromy of any fibred knot, depending only on the \(3\)-manifold in which the knot lies. Let \(\Sigma\) be a compact surface of finite type with one boundary component. The fractional Dehn twist coefficient of a mapping class on \(\Sigma\) measures the twisting needed at the boundary in order to isotope a representative which fixes the boundary pointwise to a periodic or pseudo-Anosov representative which need not fix the boundary. By work of \textit{D. Gabai} [AMS/IP Stud. Adv. Math. 2, 1--33 (1997; Zbl 0888.57025)] and \textit{W. H. Kazez} and \textit{R. Roberts} [Algebr. Geom. Topol. 13, No. 6, 3603--3637 (2013; Zbl 1278.57025)], it is known that the fractional Dehn twist coefficient of a monodromy of a fibred knot in the \(3\)-sphere lies between \(-1/2\) and \(1/2\). Furthermore, if the contact structure determined by the open book decomposition is tight, then the fractional Dehn twist coefficient is positive by work of \textit{K. Honda} et al. [Invent. Math. 169, No. 2, 427--449 (2007; Zbl 1167.57008)]. While the latter result turns out to be true for any closed oriented \(3\)-manifold, it is possible to construct arbitrarily large fractional Dehn twist coefficients by adding Dehn twists along the boundary. The main result of the article under review states that for any closed oriented \(3\)-manifold, there is an upper bound on the number of positive Dehn twists along the boundary necessary to obtain an open book decomposition (of another \(3\)-manifold) inducing a tight contact structure. Hence, the fractional Dehn twist coefficient of the new monodromy must be positive. Furthermore, since the fractional Dehn twist coefficient of a mapping class changes by one when adding a boundary-parallel Dehn twist, a lower bound for fractional Dehn twists of the original monodromy is obtained. An analogous upper bound is obtained by changing the orientation of the \(3\)-manifold, resulting in a bound on the absolute value of the fractional Dehn twist coefficient. The technical core of the proof consists of a careful study of the Heegard-Floer contact invariant in a surgery exact triangle. In fact, the bound on the number of twists needed to obtain a tight contact stucture depends only on the dimension of Heegard-Floer homology of the \(3\)-manifold and the number of elements in the torsion submodule of its first singular homology.