Contact Dehn surgery, symplectic fillings, and property P for knots (Q2507655)

This paper consists of notes of a talk given at the Mathematische Arbeitstagung 2005 in Bonn. The main goal of the paper is to give a sketch of a result of \textit{Y. Eliashberg} [Geom. Topol. 8, 277--293 (2004; Zbl 1067.53070)], which says that any weak symplectic filling of a contact 3-manifold embeds symplectically into a closed symplectic 4-manifold. The proof given follows ideas of \textit{B. Ozbagci} and \textit{A. I. Stipsicz} [Surgery on contact 3-manifolds and Stein surfaces. Bolyai Society Mathematical Studies 13. Springer (2004; Zbl 1067.57024)], and uses the fact that any closed connected contact 3-manifold can be obtained from \(S^3\) by contact (\(\pm 1\))-surgery along a Legendrian link [\textit{F. Ding} and \textit{H. Geiges}, Math. Proc. Camb. Philos. Soc. 136, No. 3, 583--598 (2004; Zbl 1069.57015)]. A sketch is also given of an important result of \textit{P. B. Kronheimer} and \textit{P. S. Mrowka} [Geom. Topol. 8, 295--310 (2004; Zbl 1072.57005)], which says that for a nontrivial knot \(K\) in \(S^3\), \(\pi_1 (K(1))\) admits a nontrivial representation into \(\text SO(3)\), where \(K(r)\) denotes the manifold obtained by \(r\)-Dehn surgery on \(K\). The proof uses in an essential way Eliashberg's result. It was previously known that for a nontrivial knot \(K\), \(\pi_1 (K(r))\) is nontrivial for \(r\not= \pm 1, \infty\) [\textit{M. Culler}, \textit{C. McA. Gordon}, \textit{J. Luecke} and \textit{P. B. Shalen}, Ann. Math. (2) 125, 237--300 (1987; Zbl 0633.57006)]. These results put together imply the long standing Property \(P\) Conjecture, that is, that any nontrivial Dehn surgery on a nontrivial knot produces a manifold with nontrivial fundamental group.