Positive loops of loose Legendrian embeddings and applications (Q2216102)

The article under review is concerned with positive loops of loose Legendrian embeddings. Let \((M, \xi = \ker \alpha)\) be a contact manifold, and \(L \subset M\) be a Legendrian submanifold. A Legendrian isotopy \(\phi: L \times [0,1] \to M\) is called positive if \(\alpha(\partial_t \phi_t)>0\). Meanwhile, the concept of loose Legendrian submanifolds in higher-dimensions was introduced by \textit{E. Murphy} in [``Loose Legendrian embeddings in high dimensional contact manifolds'', Preprint, \url{arXiv:1201.2245}]. The main result of this article is that for a contact manifold \((M, \xi)\) of dimension greater or equal to 5, any loose Legendrian submanifold \(L\) admits a contractible positive loop of Legendrian embeddings based at \(L\). Note that without the looseness assumption, \textit{F. Laudenbach} [in: New perspectives and challenges in symplectic field theory. Dedicated to Yakov Eliashberg on the occasion of his 60th birthday. Providence, RI: American Mathematical Society (AMS). 299--305 (2009; Zbl 1187.53080)] proves that \(L\) always admits positive loops of Legendrian immersions. This main result can be regarded as an extension of certain flexibility, since the concept of higher dimensional loose submanifolds is a generalization of the stabilization of Legendrian submanifolds in dimension three. In particular, loose Legendrian submanifolds are flexible in the sense that they satisfy h-principle. As a comparison, a result from \textit{V. Colin} et al. [Int. Math. Res. Not. 2017, No. 20, 6231--6254 (2017; Zbl 1405.53108)] shows that the stabilization of the zero-section \(L\) of \(T^*S^1 \times \mathbb R\), denoted by \(S(L)\), admits a positive loop of Legendrian embeddings based at \(S(L)\). Next, an application of this main result is a holomorphic curve free proof of the existence of tight contact structures in every dimension. Recall that the concept of an overtwisted or tight contact structure in higher dimension was studied in [\textit{M. S. Borman} et al., Acta Math. 215, No. 2, 281--361 (2015; Zbl 1344.53060)]. Explicitly, this article shows that for any \(n \geq 1\), the contact manifold \((S^{n-1} \times \mathbb R^n, \xi_{\mathrm{std}})\) is tight. Its proof is deeply rooted in the generating function theory. Last but not least, this main result is clearly related to the orderability concept introduced by \textit{Y. Eliashberg} and \textit{L. Polterovich} [Geom. Funct. Anal. 10, No. 6, 1448--1476 (2000; Zbl 0986.53036)] on the universal cover \(\widetilde{\mathrm{Cont}}_0(M, \xi)\). In this article, a (possibly) different notation is introduced also on \(\widetilde{\mathrm{Cont}}_0(M, \xi)\), called strong orderability. It is defined via a canonical lift from a contact isotopy in \((M, \xi)\) to a Legendrian isotopy in the contact product \((M \times M \times \mathbb R, \pi_1^*\alpha - e^s \pi_2^*\alpha)\), together with a partial order on the level of Legendrian submanifolds [\textit{V. Chernov} and \textit{S. Nemirovski}, Geom. Topol. 14, No. 1, 611--626 (2010; Zbl 1194.53066)]. Moreover, this article shows that overtwisted contact manifolds are not strongly orderable. This result makes an effort towards the interesting study of whether all overtwisted contact manifolds are non-orderable (in Eliashberg-Polterovich's sense).