Contact structures, excisions and sutured monopole Floer homology (Q2663326)

A balanced sutured manifold \((M,\gamma)\) is a compact oriented \(3\)-manifold \(M\) with boundary, together with a collection \(\gamma \subset \partial M\) of disjoint oriented circles, called the sutures, and a collection of annuli \(A(\gamma)\) comprising a tubular neighborhood of \(\gamma\) in \(\partial M\). A closure of \((M,\gamma)\) is a closed \(3\)-manifold \((Y,R)\) formed by gluing some auxiliary piece to \((M,\gamma)\) and then closing up by identifying the remaining boundary components, together with a distinguished surface \(R\) in \(Y\). In [J. Differ. Geom. 84, No. 2, 301--364 (2010; Zbl 1208.57008)], \textit{P. Kronheimer} and \textit{T. Mrowka} defined balanced sutured instanton Floer homology \(\text{SHI}(M,\gamma)\) and balanced sutured monopole Floer homology \(\text{SHM}(M,\gamma)\) of \((M,\gamma)\). If \((M,\gamma)\) is equipped with a contact structure \(\xi\) such that \(\partial M\) is convex and \(\gamma\) is the dividing set, then \(\xi\) can be extended to a contact structure \(\overline\xi\) on \(Y\). The contact invariant in sutured monopole Floer theory is defined as \(\varphi_\xi=\varphi_{\overline\xi}\in\text{SHM}(-M,-\gamma)\). If \((M_1,\gamma_1)\) and \((M_2,\gamma_2)\) are balanced sutured manifolds and \((Y_1,R_1)\) and \((Y_2,R_2)\) are their closures, then \((M_1\sqcup M_2,\gamma_1\cup\gamma_2)\) is a balanced sutured manifold with the connected closure \((Y,R)\) and there is a Floer excision cobordism \(W\) from \(Y_1\sqcup Y_2\) to \(Y\). The cobordism \(W\) induces a map \(F=HM(-W)\). In this paper, the author explores the interplay between contact structures and sutured monopole Floer homology. First, the behavior of contact elements under the operation of performing Floer excisions is studied. It is shown that the map \(F\) preserves contact elements up to multiplication by a unit, denoted by \(\dot{=}\), by showing that \(F\left(\varphi_{\overline\xi_1\cup\overline\xi_2}\right)\dot=\,\varphi_{\overline\xi}\). Next, the author proves the connected sum formula for sutured monopole Floer homology by showing that if \((M_1,\gamma_1)\) and \((M_2,\gamma_2)\) are balanced sutured manifolds, then, with \(\mathbb{Z}_2\) coefficients, \[ \text{SHM}(M_1\sharp M_2,\gamma_1\cup\gamma_2)\cong\text{SHM}(M_1,\gamma_1)\otimes\text{SHM}(M_2,\gamma_2)\otimes(\mathbb{Z}_2)^2. \] Also, it is shown that when using \(\mathbb{Z}_2\) coefficients, there is an exact triangle for the monopole knot Floer homologies of three knots \(L_0\), \(L_1\), and \(L_2\) which are related by a certain oriented skein relation. Finally, the author shows that if \((V,\lambda^{2n})\) is a solid torus with \(2n\) longitudes as the suture, with \(\mathbb{Q}\) coefficients, and \(n=2k+1\) is odd, then there is a grading induced by a meridian disk of \(V\), and under this grading, the sutured monopole Floer homology of \((V,\lambda^{2n})\) can be described as \[ \text{SHM}(V,\lambda^{2n},i)\cong H_{i+k}(T^{n-1})\ \text{for} -k\le i\le k,\ \text{or}\ 0\ \text{for}\ i>k\,\text{or}\ i<-k, \] where \(T^{n-1}\) is the \((n-1)\)-dimensional torus. The same conclusion also holds for sutured instanton Floer homology with \(\mathbb{C}\) coefficients.