Nested open books and the binding sum (Q2046762)

Similar to their \(3\)-dimensional counterpart, higher-dimensional manifolds admit open book decompositions where the binding is a codimension \(2\) submanifold, [\textit{T. Lawson}, Topology 17, 189--192 (1978; Zbl 0384.57007), \textit{F. Quinn}, ibid. 18, 55--73 (1979; Zbl 0425.57010), \textit{H. E. Winkelnkemper}, Bull. Am. Math. Soc. 79, 45--51 (1973; Zbl 0269.57011)]. Due to Giroux and Mohsen, higher-dimensional contact manifolds also admits a compatible open book decomposition, [\textit{E. Giroux} and \textit{J.P. Mohsen}, ``Structures de contact et fibrations symplectiques au-dessus du cercle'', in preparation.]. The contact structure of the ambient manifold induces a contact structure on the binding. Therefore, the binding admits a compatible open book decomposition. On the other hand, there is a topological operation called fibre connected sum which is taking connected sum along two embedded codimension \(2\) submanifolds of the manifold and then taking a quotient of the resulting manifold. When we do the fibre connected sum along the binding of the open book, it is simply called the binding sum operation, [\textit{H. Geiges}, An introduction to contact topology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (2008; Zbl 1153.53002)] The second author of the paper under review investigated how the binding sum of two open books affects the open book of the original manifold when the dimension is \(3\), [\textit{M. Klukas}, Algebr. Geom. Topol. 16, No. 3, 1253--1277 (2016; Zbl 1356.57016)]. In a parallel aspect, in the paper under review, the binding sum of open books in higher-dimensions is investigated. Moreover, a new notion called nested open books is introduced. A nested open book is a push-off of the binding carrying an open book structure compatible with the open book structure of the ambient manifold. This paper gives an explicit construction of a natural open book decomposition of a binding sum of two open books along their diffeomorphic bindings which admit open book decomposition themselves. For the contact case, the authors prove that the natural open book decomposition of a contact binding sum of two adapted open books along their contactomorphic bindings is adapted to the contact structure obtained after the binding sum.