Visualizing overtwisted discs in open books (Q2444880)

An embedded disc \(D\) in a contact \(3\)-manifold \(M\) whose boundary is a limit cycle in the characteristic foliation of the disc is called an overtwisted disc. If \(D\) is an oriented disc embedded in a contact \(3\)-manifold \(M_{(S,\varphi)}\) whose boundary is positively braided, that is, a transverse knot, with respect to the open book \((S,\varphi)\), then \(D\) is called a transverse overtwisted disc if (i)\,\(G_{- -}\) is a connected tree with no fake vertices, (ii)\,\(G_{+ +}\) is homeomorphic to \(S^1\), and (iii)\,an open book foliation \({\mathcal F}_{ob}(D)\) contains no \(c\)-circles. If \(C\) is a boundary component of \(S\), then the diffeomorphism \(\varphi\in\text{Aut}(S,\partial S)\) is said to be right-veering with respect to \(C\) if \(\gamma\geq\varphi(\gamma)\) for any isotopy classes \(\gamma\) of properly embedded curves which start at a point on \(C\), and \(\varphi\) or an open book \((S,\varphi)\) is right-veering if \(\varphi\) is right-veering with respect to all the boundary components of \(S\). In [Invent. Math. 169, No. 2, 427--449 (2007; Zbl 1167.57008)], \textit{K.~Honda} et al., proved that if an open book is not right-veering then it supports an overtwisted contact structure. In this paper, the authors give an alternative proof of the above property and show that the converse does not hold. Also, they give an infinite family of open books that are right-veering and non-destabilizable but compatible with overtwisted contact structures.