Topological constraints for Stein fillings of tight structures on lens spaces (Q2658221)

The author gives a sharp upper bound on the Euler characteristic for a minimal symplectic filling of a tight contact structure on a lens space. This upper bound is a topological constraint, not involving the contact structures, and therefore it is valid both for the universally tight and virtually overtwisted cases. He then shows that the upper bound can be always realized by a minimal symplectic filling whose intersection form and fundamental group are uniquely determined. As a lower bound, the author shows that virtually overtwisted structures on a certain family of lens spaces never bound Stein rational homology balls. Finally, the author studies the virtually overtwisted structures on a lens space, and necessary conditions for the lifts of them on the intermediate coverings to be tight, and deduces some information about the fundamental groups of the possible Stein fillings of certain virtually overtwisted structures.