Spherical rigidity via contact dynamics (Q1840636)

This well written article is a follow up on the author's study of \(K\)-manifolds, in the contact geometry setting. He investigates the rigidity of the sphere applying generalized Morse-Bott theory. In particular, a \(K\)-contact manifold is a contact manifold \((M,\alpha)\) with a nonunique contact Riemannian metric \(g\), a characteristic vector field \(\xi\) of the contact form \(\alpha\), and a \((1,1)\) tensor field \(J\) adapted to \(\alpha\), ie., such that the following identities hold [\textit{D. E. Blair}, Contact manifolds in Riemannian geometry, Lect. Notes Math. 509, Springer-Verlag, Berlin (1976; Zbl 0319.53026)]: \[ J\xi = 0, \;\;\alpha (\xi ) = 1,\;\;i_\xi d\alpha = 0, \;\;J^ 2 = - I + \alpha \otimes \xi, \;\;\alpha (X) = g(\xi,X) \] \[ g(JX,JY) = g(X,Y) - \alpha (X)\alpha(Y), \;\;g(X,JY) = d\alpha (X,Y); \] the characteristic \(\xi\) is also a Killing vector field with respect to \(g\). The main theorem is as follows: Theorem: A closed smooth \(2n +1\)-dimensional manifold is homeomorphic with the \(2n+1\)-sphere if and only if it admits a \(K\)-contact form with exactly \(n+1\) closed characteristics. For other references about \(K\)-manifolds, see \textit{A. Lotta} [Balkan J. Geom. Appl. 3, 37--51 (1998; Zbl 0937.53027)] and \textit{B. Prasad} [J. Natl. Acad. Math. India 11, 209--214 (1997; Zbl 0936.53049)].