Non-loose unknots, overtwisted discs, and the contact mapping class group of \(S^3\) (Q1746613)

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. A Legendrian knot in a contact manifold \((M,\xi)\) is an embedding \(S^1\to M\) so that the tangent space of the image is contained in \(\xi\). A knot \(K\) in \((M,\xi)\) is transverse if its tangent space is transverse to \(\xi(p)\) at every point \(p\in K\). If \(\Sigma\) is a connected Seifert surface for a Legendrian knot \(K\), then the Thurston-Bennequin invariant \(\text{tb}(K)\) of \(K\) is the algebraic intersection number of the push off of \(K\) along a vector field transverse to \(\xi\) with \(\Sigma\), and the rotation number \(\text{rot}(K)\) of \(K\) is the number of full turns the positive tangent vector of \(K\) makes compared to an oriented framing of \(\xi| _{\Sigma}\) as one moves along the oriented curve. Two Legendrian knots are Legendrian isotopic if there is a smooth family of contactomorphisms taking one knot to the other one. A Legendrian or transverse knot that has a tight complement, or in other words it intersects all overtwisted discs, is called non-loose. Non-loose Legendrian knots are interesting because one can obtain tight contact structures from surgeries on non-loose Legendrian knots. In this paper, the author classifies Legendrian unknots in overtwisted contact structures on \(S^3\). In particular, he shows that if \(K\subset S^3\) is a non-loose Legendrian unknot with \(\text{tb}(K)=n>0\) and \(\text{rot}(K)=\pm(n-1)\), then \(K\) is isotopic to exactly one of two standard unknots with the same classical invariants. Only one overtwisted contact structure on \(S^3\) admits a non-loose unknot \(K\) and the classical invariants have to be \(\text{tb}(K)=n\) and \(\text{rot}(K)=\pm(n-1)\) for \(n>1\). The author uses this fact to prove that the contact mapping class group of an overtwisted contact structure on \(S^3\) depends on the contact structure, and that the identity component of the contactomorphism group of an overtwisted contact structure on \(S^3\) does not always act transitively on the set of boundaries of overtwisted discs.