A cut-and-paste approach to contact topology (Q2493394)

This paper is an exposition of cut and paste techniques in contact topology that are similar to the Haken decomposition and the Gabai saturated manifold decomposition. Convex decompositions and tight contact structures on atoroidal and Haken manifolds are discussed in detail. Here are some important results discussed in the paper. Let \((M,\gamma)\) be a suturated irreducible manifold with annular sutures, and let \((M, \Gamma)\) be the corresponding convex structure. Then the following statements are equivalent: \((M, \Gamma)\) carries a tight contact structure iff \((M, \Gamma)\) carries a universally tight contact structure iff \((M, \gamma)\) carries a taut foliation iff \((M, \gamma)\) has a suturated manifold decomposition iff \((M,\gamma)\) is taut. (These equivalences were proved in the works of Eliashberg, Gabai and Thurston.) An irreducible manifold \(M\) carries finitely many tight (or universally tight) contact structures if and only if it is atoroidal. (The if direction was proved by Colin, Giroux and Honda. The only if direction was proved by Colin and by Honda, Kazez and Matic.) The author gives a classification (due to Honda, Kazez and Matic) of tight non product contact structures on the product \(\Sigma\times I\) of an interval and a closed surface of genus \(\geq 2\) such that the dividing curves on each component of \(\partial (\Sigma \times I)\) are a pair of nonseparating parallel curves. He uses this classification to prove the Gabai-Eliashberg-Thurston Theorem saying that a Haken manifold \(M\) with \(H_2(M)\neq0\) carries a universally tight contact structure. In the last section the author discusses some open questions and possible relations with the theory of laminations.