Nonorientable Lagrangian cobordisms between Legendrian knots (Q346694)

A triple \((M,\omega,\beta)\) consisting of a \(2n\)-dimensional symplectic manifold \((X,\omega)\) and a \(1\)-form \(\beta\) satisfying \(d\beta=\omega\) is called an exact symplectic manifold. A \(2\)-dimensional submanifold \(L\subset M\) of a \(4\)-dimensional symplectic manifold \((M,\omega)\) such that \(\omega|_{L}=0\) is called Lagrangian, and is exact Lagrangian if \(\beta|_{L}\) is exact. If \(\Lambda_+\) and \(\Lambda_-\) are Legendrian links in \(\mathbb R^3\), then a Lagrangian submanifold \(L\subset\mathbb R\times\mathbb R^3\) without boundary is called a Lagrangian cobordism from \(\Lambda_+\) to \(\Lambda_-\) if it is of the form \(L=((-\infty,T_-]\times\Lambda_-)\cup\overline L\cup([T_+,\infty)\times\Lambda_+)\) for some \(T_-<T_+\), where \(\overline L\subset[T_-,T_+]\times\mathbb R^3\) is compact with boundary \(\partial\overline L=(\{T_-\}\times\Lambda_-)\cup(\{T_+\}\times\Lambda_+)\). A Lagrangian cobordism from \(\Lambda_+\) to \(\Lambda_-\) is said to be orientable if \(L\) is orientable, and is called exact if \(L\) is exact. A Lagrangian knot \(\Lambda\) is (exactly) fillable if there exists an (exact) Lagrangian cobordism, called endocobordism, from \(\Lambda\) to \(\varnothing\). In this paper, the authors study Lagrangian cobordisms in the symplectization of the standard contact \(\mathbb R^3\), namely the symplectic manifold \((\mathbb R\times\mathbb R^3, d(e^t\alpha))\), where \(\alpha=dz-ydx\), that coincide with the cylinders \(\mathbb R\times\Lambda_+\), respectively \(\mathbb R\times\Lambda_-\), when the \(\mathbb R\)-coordinate is sufficiently positive, respectively negative. They are interested in nonorientable Lagrangian cobordisms between Legendrian knots \(\Lambda_+\) and \(\Lambda_-\) and nonorientable Lagrangian endocobordisms, which are nonorientable Lagrangian cobordisms with \(\Lambda_+=\Lambda_-\). For any smooth knot \(K\subset\mathbb R^3\) and an arbitrary \(j\geq 0\), there is a smooth \(2\)-dimensional orientable submanifold \(M\) of genus \(j\) such that \(M\) agrees with the cylinder \(\mathbb R\times K\) when the \(\mathbb R\)-coordinate lies outside an interval \([T_-,T_+]\). The analogous statement is valid for nonorientable \(M\) and the number of real projective planes in a connected sum decomposition, the so called the cross-cap genus, when \(j>0\). In [Algebr. Geom. Topol. 10, No. 1, 63--85 (2010; Zbl 1203.57010)], \textit{B.~Chantraine} proved that any orientable Lagrangian endocobordism of any Legendrian knot has genus \(0\). In this article, the authors show that for an arbitrary Legendrian knot \(\Lambda\), there exists a nonorientable Lagrangian endocobordism for \(\Lambda\) of cross-cap genus \(g\) if and only if \(g=4k\) with \(k\in\mathbb Z^+\), and there does not exist an exact, nonorientable Lagrangian endocobordism for any Legendrian knot \(\Lambda\) that is exactly orientably or nonorientably fillable. The more restrictive exact, nonorientable Lagrangian endocobordisms do not exist for any exactly fillable Legendrian knot but do exist for any stabilized Legendrian knot. Moreover, the relation defined by exact, nonorientable Lagrangian cobordism on the set of stabilized Legendrian knots is symmetric and defines an equivalence relation, a contrast to the nonsymmetric relation defined by orientable Lagrangian cobordisms.