Linking numbers in contact form geometry, with an application to the computation of the intersection operator for the first contact form of J. Gonzalo and F. Varela (Q2254877)

The main result of this paper states that the linking number between two periodic orbits does not decrease along the decreasing flow lines of a suitable pseudo-gradient for the action functional of the variational problem \((J, C_{\beta })\) as well as its extension \((J_{\infty }, \cup \Gamma _{2k})\). This fact is used to express the value of the intersection operator for periodic orbits in the case of the first exotic contact form of \textit{J. Gonzalo} and \textit{F. Varela} [Astérisque 107--108, 163--168 (1983; Zbl 0526.53042)].