No label defined (Q4459920)

The author gives a condensed introduction to the theory of contact topology along with many exercises. After basic definitions and examples are given and discussed, the author considers contact structures near a point and then near a surface, and introduces the notion of characteristic foliation on a surface. The following section is devoted to a fundamental dichotomy in contact 3-topology: tight vs. overtwisted, and manipulations of the characteristic foliations. In Section 5 the author introduces the classical invariants of Legendrian and transverse knots and the Bennequin inequality for such a knot in a tight contact structure. Also Martinet's theorem for the existence of contact structures is proved via Dehn surgery and the gluing of model contact structures. In the last section the author ends with a brief introduction to the convex surface theory, and indicates the power of such a theory in contact geometry. For the entire collection see [Zbl 1027.00024].