A bound for rational Thurston-Bennequin invariants (Q2417671)

A contact structure on a smooth 3-manifold \(M\) is a completely non-integrable 2-plane field \(\xi\subset TM\), i.e., there exists a globally defined 1-form \(\alpha\) on \(M\) such that \(\alpha\wedge d\alpha\) is a volume form of \(M\). The standard contact structure \(\xi_{\text{std}}\) on \(S^3\subset\mathbb{R}^4\) is given in Cartesian coordinates as \(\xi_{\text{std}}=\ker(x_1 dy_1-y_1 dx_1+x_2 dy_2-y_2 dx_2)\). An embedded disc \(D\to M\) in a contact manifold \((M,\xi)\) is called overtwisted if \(T_pD=\xi(p)\) for all points \(p\in\partial D\). A contact structure is tight if there is no overtwisted disc, otherwise it is overtwisted. A Legendrian knot in a contact manifold \((M,\xi)\) is an embedding \(S^1\to M\) so that the tangent space of the image is contained in \(\xi\). If \(\Sigma\) is a connected Seifert surface for a Legendrian knot \(K\), then the Thurston-Bennequin invariant \(\mathsf{tb}(K)\) of \(K\) is the algebraic intersection number of the push off of \(K\) along a vector field transverse to \(\xi\) with \(\Sigma\), and the rotation number \(\mathsf{rot}(K)\) of \(K\) is the number of full turns the positive tangent vector of \(K\) makes compared to an oriented framing of \(\xi\vert_{\Sigma}\) as one moves along the oriented curve. If \(L\) is a Legendrian representative of an integrally null-homologous knot \(K\) in a tight contact 3-manifold \((Y,\xi)\), then the well-known Bennequin-Eliashberg inequality is \(\mathsf{tb}(L)+\mathsf{rot}(L)\le 2g(K)-1\), where \(g(K)\) is the genus of \(K\). In [Algebr. Geom. Topol. 4, 399--406 (2004; Zbl 1070.57014)], \textit{O. Plamenevskaya} improved this inequality for knots in the tight contact 3-sphere \((S^3,\xi_{\text{std}})\) and showed that \(\mathsf{tb}(L)+\mathsf{rot}(L)\le \tau(K)-1\), where \(\tau(K)\) is an invariant of \(K\) defined by \textit{P. Ozsváth} and \textit{Z. Szabó} in [Geom. Topol. 7, 615--639 (2003; Zbl 1037.57027)]. In [Adv. Math. 219, No. 1, 89--117 (2008; Zbl 1155.53046)], \textit{M. Hedden} introduced an invariant \(\tau_\xi(K,F)\) for an integrally null-homologous knot \(K\) with a Seifert surface \(F\) in a contact 3-manifold \((Y,\xi)\) with a non-trivial Ozsváth-Szabó contact invariant \(c(\xi)\) (presented in [\textit{P. Ozsváth} and \textit{Z. Szabó}, Duke Math. J. 129, No. 1, 39--61 (2005; Zbl 1083.57042)]). He proved that \(\mathsf{tb}(L)+\mathsf{rot}(L;F)\le 2\tau_\xi(K,F)-1\) for any Legendrian representative \(L\) of \(K\) in \((Y,\xi)\). In [Prog. Math. 296, 19--37 (2012; Zbl 1273.57006)], \textit{K. Baker} and \textit{J. Etnyre} defined the rational Thurston-Bennequin invariant \(\textsf{tb}_{\mathbb{Q}}(K)\) and the rational rotation number \(\textsf{rot}_{\mathbb{Q}}(K)\) of a rationally null-homologous Legendrian knot \(L\). If \(L\) is a null homologous oriented Legendrian knot in a closed contact 3-manifold \((M,\xi)\) with \(M\) being a rational homology sphere, \(\Sigma\) is a rational Seifert surface for \(L\) with connected binding, that is, \(\partial\Sigma\) is connected and is homologous to \(r\cdot[L]\), where \(r\) is the smallest positive integer such that \(r\cdot[L]=0\in H_1(M;\mathbb Z)\), and \(L'\) is another Legendrian knot, then the rational linking \(\mathsf{lk}\) is defined as \(\mathsf{lk}(L,L')=\frac1r[\Sigma]\cdot[L']\). If the Legendrian knot \(L'\) is a push-off of \(L\) in the direction of the framing of the normal bundle of \(L\) induced by \(\xi\vert_{L}\), then the rational Thurston-Bennequin invariant \(\mathsf{tb}\) of \(L\) is defined as \(\mathsf{tb}(L)=\mathsf{lk}(L,L')\) If \(\imath:\Sigma\to M\) is an embedding on the interior of \(\Sigma\), \(\tau\) is a trivialization of the pull-back bundle \(\imath^*(\xi)\) over \(\Sigma\), then the rational rotation number \(\mathsf{rot}\) of \(L\) is defined as \(\mathsf{rot}(L)=\frac1r\text{wind}_\tau(v)\), where \(\text{wind}_\tau(v)\) measures the winding number of \(v\) in \(\mathbb R^2\) with respect to the trivialization \(\tau\). It was shown that if \(L\) is a Legendrian representative of a rationally null-homologous knot \(K\) in a contact 3-manifold \((Y,\xi)\), \(F\) is a rational Seifert surface of \(K\), and \(\xi\) is a tight contact structure, then \(\textsf{tb}_{\mathbb{Q}}(L)+\textsf{rot}_{\mathbb{Q}}(L;F)\le-\frac1q\chi(F)\), where \(q\) is the order of \([K]\) in \(H_1(Y;\mathbb{Z})\). \par In this paper, the authors introduce a rational invariant \(\tau^*_{c(\xi)}(Y,K,F)\) for a rationally null-homologous knot \(K\), which generalizes the above defined Hedden's invariant \(\tau_\xi(K,F)\). The main result shows that this invariant gives an upper bound for the sum of the rational Thurston-Bennequin invariant and the rational rotation number of all Legendrian representatives of \(K\). They show that if \(K\) is a rationally null-homologous knot in a 3-manifold \(Y\) with a rational Seifert surface \(F\), and \(\xi\) is a contact structure on \(Y\) with nontrivial Ozsváth-Szabó contact invariant \(c(\xi)\in\widehat{HF}(-Y,\mathfrak{s}_\xi)\), where \(\mathfrak{s}_\xi\) is the \(\text{spin}^c\) structure induced by \(\xi\), then \(\mathsf{tb}_{\mathbb{Q}}(L)+\mathsf{rot}_{\mathbb{Q}}(L;F)\le2\tau^*_{c(\xi)}(Y,K,F)-1\) for any Legendrian representative \(L\) of \(K\). A closed 3-manifold \(Y\) is called an \(L\)-space if it is a rational homology sphere and \(\text{rank }\widehat{HF}(Y)=|H_1(Y)|\), and a knot \(K\) in an \(L\)-space \(Y\) is called Floer simple if \(\text{rank }\widehat{HFK}(Y,K)=\text{rank }\widehat{HF}(Y)\). In the next result the authors show that the rational invariant \(\tau\) of a Floer simple knot in an \(L\)-space \(Y\) can be expressed in terms of the correction terms of \(Y\).