Pseudoholomorphic strips in symplectisations. I: Asymptotic behavior (Q1888406)

This is the first in series of papers discussing behavior of pseudoholomorphic strips in the symplectisation of a contact 3-dimensional manifold. Namely, the author studies the boundary value problem on the pseudoholomorphic curves of finite energy with appropriately prescribed ends, which belong to some totally real submanifolds. This paper handles the degenerate situation, when the submanifolds can intersect non-transversally. The above problem arises in counting periodic orbits of the Reeb vector field and characteristic chords (i.e. segments of trajectories of the Reeb vector field connecting different points on a pre-fixed Legendrian submanifold) which is basic for relative contact homology (from the symplectic field theory due to Eliashberg, Givental and Hofer). The main result of the present paper is an accurate asymptotic formula for pseudoholomorphic strips solving the boundary-valued problem.