Topological recursion relations in non-equivariant cylindrical contact homology (Q376073)

Motivated by the proposal made by Eliashberg-Givental-Hofer in the formalism of symplectic field theory (SFT) and the question of associated integrable system, the paper in review studies some topological recursion relations in the SFT setting by attempting to translate the well-known recursion relations, string, dilaton, divisor equations in Gromov-Witten theory by involving gravitational descendants therefrom. For such a study, due to the presence of codimension-one strata in the relevant moduli space of pseudo-holomorphic curves, one needs to study ``all'' the moduli spaces simultaneously. Also owing to the problem of a priori non-transversality and the presence of non-trivial isotopy, one needs to use the machinery of the so-called virtual fundamental chains, and to establish the existence of a system of compatible multi-sections. Readers should be aware that the paper under review does not discuss the existence of compatible systems of multi-sections and virtual fundamental chains with full mathematical rigor, but just mentions that the yet-to-be-established framework of the polyfold approach will eventually ``solve all the challenges in the most satisfactory way''. For interested readers, the present reviewer refers them for such details, e.g., discussion of the inductive procedure of construction of compatible multi-sections, to Section 7.2 of the book [\textit{K. Fukaya} et al., Lagrangian intersection Floer theory. Anomaly and obstruction. II. Providence, RI: American Mathematical Society (AMS); Somerville, MA: International Press (2009; Zbl 1181.53003)]. The paper under review studies a genus-zero topological recursion relation and exhibits the necessity of involving a non-equivariant version of SFT, which is generated by a parameterized instead of unparameterized closed Reeb orbits. Acknowledging that such a non-equivariant version is so far only defined for cylindrical contact homology, the authors restrict themselves to this special case and show that, as in genus zero Gromov-Witten theory, all descendant invariants can be computed from those without descendants.