Contact surgery and supporting open books (Q1954156)

For an oriented \(3\)-manifold \(M\), a hyperplane distribution \(\xi\) for which there exists a globally defined one-form \(\alpha\) satisfying \(\xi=\ker(\alpha)\) and \(\alpha\wedge d\alpha>0\) with respect to the prescribed orientation on \(M\), is called a contact structure on \(M\). An open book decomposition of a closed, oriented \(3\)-manifold \(M\) is a pair \((B,\pi)\) consisting of an oriented link \(B\subset M\) (binding) and a fibration \(\pi: M\setminus B\to S^1\). The preimage of a point on the circle gives an oriented surface with boundary called the page of the decomposition. For a compact oriented surface \(\Sigma\) with non-empty boundary and a diffeomorphism \(\Phi:\Sigma\to\Sigma\) that restricts to the identity on a neighborhood of \(\partial\,\Sigma\), the abstract open book associated to the pair \((\Sigma,\Phi)\) is the \(3\)-manifold \(M_{(\Sigma,\Phi)}=(\Sigma\times[0,1])\,/\sim\), where \((x,1)\sim(\Phi(x),0)\) for \(x\in\Sigma\) and \((x,\theta)\sim(x,\theta')\) for \(x\in\partial\,\Sigma\), \(\theta,\theta'\in[0,1]\). Every abstract open book \((\Sigma,\Phi)\) admits the open book decomposition \((B,\pi)=(\partial\,\Sigma,(x,\theta)\to\theta)\), and every open book decomposition determines an abstract open book. An open book \((\Sigma,\Phi)\) supports \((M,\xi)\) if \(M=M_{(M,\xi)}\) and there is a contact \(1\)-form \(\alpha\) for \(\xi=\ker(\alpha)\) that is a positive length element on the binding and such that the Reeb vector field \(R_\alpha\) is transverse to the interiors of all the pages. Majority of problems deals with a rather complex notion of equivalence between supporting open books, much less is known about how contact surgery diagrams relate to one another. Developments of this type appear in the paper of \textit{F. Ding} and \textit{H. Geiges} [Math. Proc. Camb. Philos. Soc. 136, No. 3, 583--598 (2004; Zbl 1069.57015)], who have shown that every contact manifold may be obtained by contact surgery, and have listed a number of handle-slide and cancellation type moves that can be used to modify contact surgery diagrams. In this paper, the author's goals are to develop Kirby moves for contact manifolds by employing the open book perspective, as well as to analyze the problem of minimizing support invariants from the surgery perspective. All results obtained are consequences of the two new algorithms, the first of which converts an open book \((\Sigma,\Phi )\) supporting \((M,\xi )\) with connected binding into a contact surgery diagram, while the second one turns a contact surgery diagram for \((M,\xi )\) into a supporting open book decomposition. It is shown that any two surgery diagrams of the same contact \(3\)-manifold are related by a sequence of Legendrian isotopies and Kirby moves. The author presents a number of examples illustrating his results.