Fundamental groups of formal Legendrian and horizontal embedding spaces (Q2664134)

The space of embeddings of a manifold \(N\) into a manifold \(M\) equipped with the \(C^r\)-topology, \(r\ge 5\), is denoted by \(\mathfrak{Emb}(N,M)\). The space of parametrized unknotted circles in \(\mathbb{R}^3\) has the homotopy type of \(\text{SO}(3)\). The group \(\text{SO}(4)\) acts freely on the connected component \(\mathfrak{Emb}_{p,q}(\mathbb{S}^1,\mathbb{S}^3)\subset\mathfrak{Emb}(\mathbb{S}^1,\mathbb{S}^3)\) of the parametrized \((p,q)\) torus knots as \(\text{SO}(4)\times\mathfrak{Emb}_{p,q}(\mathbb{S}^1,\mathbb{S}^3)\hookrightarrow\mathfrak{Emb}_{p,q}(\mathbb{S}^1,\mathbb{S}^3)\), \((A,\gamma)\mapsto A\cdot\gamma\). It turns out that the inclusion \(\text{SO}(4)\hookrightarrow\mathfrak{Emb}_{p,q}(\mathbb{S}^1,\mathbb{S}^3)\) is a homotopy equivalence. In this paper, the authors study fundamental groups of formal Legendrian and horizontal embedding spaces. If \(\xi\) is the standard contact structure in \(\mathbb{R}^3(x,y,z)\) given by \(\xi=\ker(dz-ydx)\) and \(\partial_y\) is the Legendrian framing, then an immersion \(\gamma:\mathbb{S}^1\to\mathbb{R}^3\) such that \(\gamma'(t)\in\xi_{\gamma(t)}\) for all \(t\in\mathbb{S}^1\) is said to be Legendrian. If \(\gamma\) is an embedding, then it is said to be a Legendrian embedding. The space of Legendrian immersions in \(\mathbb{R}^3\) is denoted by \(\mathfrak{LegImm}(\mathbb{R}^3)\), and the space of Legendrian embeddings is denoted by \(\mathfrak{Leg}(\mathbb{R}^3)\). A formal Legendrian immersion in \(\mathbb{R}^3\) is a pair \((\gamma,F)\) such that (i)\,\(\gamma:\mathbb{S}^1\to\mathbb{R}^3\) is a smooth map, (ii)\, \(F:\mathbb{S}^1\to\gamma^*(T\mathbb{R}^3\backslash\{0\})\) satisfies \(F(t)\in\mathcal{\xi}_{\gamma(t)}\), and a formal Legendrian embedding in \(\mathbb{R}^3\) is a pair \((\gamma,F_s)\) satisfying (i)\,\(\gamma:\mathbb{S}^1\to\mathbb{R}^3\) is an embedding, (ii)\, \(F_s:\mathbb{S}^1\to\gamma^*(T\mathbb{R}^3\backslash\{0\})\) for \(s\in[0,1]\) is a \(1\)-parameter family such that \(F_0=\gamma'\) and \(F_1(t)\in\mathcal{\xi}_{\gamma(t)}\). The space of formal Legendrian immersions in \(\mathbb{R}^3\) is denoted by \(\mathfrak{FLegImm}(\mathbb{R}^3)\), and the space of formal Legendrian embeddings in \(\mathbb{R}^3\) is denoted by \(\mathfrak{FLeg}(\mathbb{R}^3)\). The authors show that \(\pi_0\left(\mathfrak{FLeg}(\mathbb{R}^3)\right)\cong\pi_0\left(\mathfrak{Emb}(\mathbb{S}^1,\mathbb{R}^3)\right)\oplus\mathbb{Z}\oplus\mathbb{Z}\), where the first \(\mathbb{Z}\) corresponds to the rotation number and the second one corresponds to the Thurston-Bennequin invariant. Next, the authors present the classification of formal Legendrian embeddings in \(\mathbb{R}^3\) by showing that formal Legendrian embeddings are classified by their parametrized knot type, rotation number and Thurston-Bennequin invariant. One of the main results of the paper concerning fundamental groups of formal Legendrian embeddings in \(\mathbb{R}^3\) states that for \(m\ge 0\), the sequence \[ 0\to\mathbb{Z}\oplus\mathbb{Z}\to\pi_1\left(\mathfrak{FLeg}(\mathbb{R}^3)\right)\to\pi_1\left(\mathfrak{Emb}(\mathbb{S}^1,\mathbb{R}^3)\right)\oplus\mathbb{Z}\to 0 \] is exact. In particular, if \(\mathfrak{Emb}'(\mathbb{S}^1,\mathbb{R}^3)\subseteq\mathfrak{Emb}(\mathbb{S}^1,\mathbb{R}^3)\) is the fixed connected component of the parametrized unknot or of the parametrized \((p,q)\) torus knot, then \(m=0\) and \[ 0\to\mathbb{Z}\oplus\mathbb{Z}\to\pi_1\left(\mathfrak{FLeg}(\mathbb{R}^3)\right)\to\pi_1\left(\mathfrak{Emb}'(\mathbb{S}^1,\mathbb{R}^3)\right)\oplus\mathbb{Z}\to 0 \] is exact. Further, the authors compute the fundamental group of the different connected components of the space of formal horizontal embeddings into the standard Engel \(\mathbb{R}^4\). The structure \(\mathcal{D}=\ker(dy-zdx)\cap(dz-wdx)\) in \(\mathbb{R}(x,y,z,w)\) is called the standard Engel structure. An immersion \(\gamma:\mathbb{S}^1\to\mathbb{R}^4\) such that \(\gamma'(t)\in\mathcal{D}_{\gamma(t)}\) for all \(t\in\mathbb{S}^1\) is said to be horizontal. If \(\gamma\) is an embedding, then it is said to be a horizontal embedding. The space of horizontal immersions in \(\mathbb{R}^4\) is denoted by \(\mathfrak{horImm}(\mathbb{R}^4)\), and the space of horizontal embeddings is denoted by \(\mathfrak{hor}(\mathbb{R}^4)\). All these spaces are endowed with the \(C^r\)-topology. A formal horizontal immersion in \(\mathbb{R}^4\) is a pair \((\gamma,F)\) (i)\,\(\gamma:\mathbb{S}^1\to\mathbb{R}^4\) is a smooth map, (ii)\, \(F:\mathbb{S}^1\to\gamma^*(T\mathbb{R}^4\backslash\{0\})\) satisfies \(F(t)\in\mathcal{D}_{\gamma(t)}\), and a formal horizontal embedding in \(\mathbb{R}^4\) is a pair \((\gamma,F_s)\) satisfying (i)\,\(\gamma:\mathbb{S}^1\to\mathbb{R}^4\) is an embedding, (ii)\, \(F_s:\mathbb{S}^1\to\gamma^*(T\mathbb{R}^4\backslash\{0\})\) for \(s\in[0,1]\) is a \(1\)-parameter family such that \(F_0=\gamma'\) and \(F_1(t)\in\mathcal{D}_{\gamma(t)}\). The space of formal horizontal immersions in \(\mathbb{R}^4\) is denoted by \(\mathfrak{FhorImm}(\mathbb{R}^4)\), and the space of formal horizontal embeddings in \(\mathbb{R}^4\) is denoted by \(\mathfrak{Fhor}(\mathbb{R}^4)\). All these spaces are endowed with the \(C^r,C^{r-1}\)-topology. The authors present the result concerning the fundamental group of each connected component of \(\mathfrak{Fhor}(\mathbb{R}^4)\) by showing that \[ 0\to\mathbb{Z}_2\to\pi_1\left(\mathfrak{Fhor}(\mathbb{R}^4)\right)\to\pi\left(\mathfrak{Emb}(\mathbb{S}^1,\mathbb{R}^4)\right)\oplus\mathbb{Z}\to 0 \] is exact. Finally, the authors show that the formal fundamental group is isomorphic to the fundamental group, that is, the \(\mathbb{Z}_2\)-invariant and the rotation invariant completely classify the elements of the fundamental group of horizontal embeddings. They show that the inclusion \(\mathfrak{hor}(\mathbb{R}^4)\hookrightarrow\mathfrak{Fhor}(\mathbb{R}^4)\) induces an isomorphism of fundamental groups.