Symplectic dynamics and the 3-sphere (Q2303688)

If \((M,\xi)\) is a compact connected co-oriented contact 3-manifold whose boundary \(\partial M\) is diffeomorphic to the 2-torus, then \(\partial M\) is said to admit a contact embedding into \((\mathbb{R}^3,\xi_{\mathrm{st}})\) if there exists a co-orientation preserving contact embedding \(\varphi\) of a neighborhood \(U\subset(M,\xi)\) of \(\partial M\) into \((\mathbb{R}^3,\xi_{\mathrm{st}})\) such that (i) the interior of \(\varphi(U)\) is mapped into the bounded component of \(\mathbb{R}^3\backslash\varphi(\partial M)\) and (ii) affine lines parallel to the \(z\)-axis intersect \(\varphi(\partial M)\) in at most two points. A contact form \(\alpha\) is called aperiodic if the associated Reeb vector field \(\xi=\ker\alpha\) does not have any periodic solution. A contact form \(\alpha\) on \(M\) is called standard near the boundary if the restriction of \(\varphi\) to a possibly smaller neighborhood \(U\) of \(\partial M\) pulls \(\alpha_{\mathrm{st}}\) back to \(\alpha\vert_{U}\). If \((M',\xi')\) is a closed connected contact 3-manifold and \(K\subset(M',\xi')\) is a transverse knot, then there exists a contact embedding \(f:(S^1\times\mathbb{R}^2,\xi_{\mathrm{st}})\to(M',\xi')\) that is positive and sends \(S^1\times\{0\}\) to \(K\). The image of the restriction of \(f\) to \(S^1\times D^2\) is the tubular neighborhood \(\nu K=f(S^1\times D^2)\subset M'\), which is unique up to smooth isotopies. The exterior of the transverse knot \(K\subset(M',\xi')\) is defined as \(M=M'\backslash\mathrm{Int}(\nu K)\). The boundary \(\partial M\subset(M,\xi)\) of any knot exterior admits a contact embedding into \((\mathbb{R}^3,\xi_{\mathrm{st}})\). If \(K\) is a knot in a closed connected oriented 3-manifold \(M'\), then \(M'\) admits infinitely many positively co-oriented contact structures such that \(K\) is a transverse knot. In other words, any knot appears as a transverse knot for a certain contact structure. In this paper, the authors characterize the unknot in \(S^3\) uniquely in terms of symplectic dynamics on the knot exterior. The main result of the paper states that if \(K\) is a transverse knot in a closed connected co-oriented contact 3-manifold \((M',\xi')\) and the knot exterior \((M,\xi)\) of \(K\subset(M',\xi')\) admits an aperiodic \(\xi\)-defining contact form \(\alpha\) such that \(\alpha\) is Euclidian near the boundary \(\partial M\), then \((M',K)\) is diffeomorphic to \((S^3,\{z_1=0\})\) with orientations preserved so that \(K\) is the unknot.