Ozsváth-Szabó invariants of contact surgeries (Q2260553)

A differential \(1\)-form \(\alpha\) on an oriented \(3\)-manifold \(M\) is called a contact form and the \(2\)-plane field given as \(\ker\alpha\) is called a contact structure if \(\alpha \wedge d\,\alpha>0\). A contact structure \(\xi\) on \(M\) is called overtwisted if there is a disk \(D\) embedded in \(M\) such that the tangent plane \(T_xD\) to \(D\) is the same as \(\xi_x\) for every \(x\in\partial D\), otherwise it is called tight. Every closed, oriented 3-manifold carries an overtwisted contact structure but some of them admit no tight contact structure. The existence problem of tight contact structures on \(3\)-manifolds is still open. In [Invent. Math. 98, No. 3, 623--637 (1989; Zbl 0684.57012)], \textit{Y. Eliashberg} classified overtwisted contact structures on \(3\)-manifolds according to the homotopy type of the underlying plane field. It turns out that the classification of tight contact structures has not been yet completed. The questions of how many and how to describe \(3\)-manifolds supporting tight contact structures still remain open. To study tightness of contact structures, \textit{P. Ozsváth} and \textit{Z. Szabó} in [Duke Math. J. 129, No. 1, 39--61 (2005; Zbl 1083.57042)] introduced the Floer-theoretic invariant \(c\) as an element \(c(K)\) of the Floer homology \(\widehat{HF}(-Y)\) of a closed, oriented three-manifold \(Y\) endowed with a cooriented contact structure \(\xi\) with reversed orientation that is associated to a fibered knot \(K\). The invariant \(c\) vanishes for overwisted contact structures and is nonzero for Stein-fillable ones. In [Geom. Topol. 7, 615--639 (2003; Zbl 1037.57027)], \textit{P. Ozsváth} and \textit{Z. Szabó} introduced two concordance invariants \(\tau(K)\), \(\nu(K)\in\mathbb Z\) such that \(\tau(K)\leq\nu(K)\leq\tau(K)+1\). A knot \(K\) in \(S^3\) equips the chain complex \(\widehat{CF}(S^3)\) of the Heegaard Floer homology group \(\widehat{HF}(S^3)\) with a filtration \({\mathcal F} : \widehat{CF}(S^3)\rightarrow\mathbb{Z}\). The inclusion from the set \({\mathcal F}(K,m)\) of generators with filtration level no bigger than \(m\) into \(\widehat{CF}(S^3)\) induces maps \(\iota^m_K: H_*({\mathcal F}(K,m)) \rightarrow \widehat{HF}(S^3) \cong \mathbb{Z}\) in homology. The invariant \(\tau (K)\) is defined to be the smallest \(m\) for which \(\iota _K^m\) is nontrivial. In this paper, by using these invariants the author presents new tightness criteria for positive surgeries along knots in the \(3\)-sphere. For any Legendrian knot \(L\subset (S^3,\xi)\) there are two possible contact structures \(\xi^{\pm}_n(L)\) that are obtained as contact \(n\)-surgery on \(L\). The author proves that if \(L\) is an oriented Legendrian knot in the standard contact structure \(\xi_{\text{st}}\) on \(S^3\) and \(K\) is the topological type of \(L\), then for positive \(n\), the structure \(\xi^-_n(L)\) has nonvanishing contact invariant if and only if the following conditions are satisfied (i)\, \(\text{tb}(L)-r(L)=2\,\tau(K)-1\), (ii)\, \(n+\text{tb}(L)\geq2\,\tau(K)\), (iii)\, \(\tau(K)=\nu(K)\), where \(\tau(K)\) and \(r(K)\) are the Thurston-Bennequin and the rotation number, respectively. Moreover, if \(L'\) is another Legendrian knot with the same \(\tau\) and \(r\), then \(c(\xi^-_n(L'))=c(\xi^-_n(L))\). Also, the author discusses a Legendrian cabling construction and its interactions with contact surgeries.