Legendrian knots and constructible sheaves (Q517430)

The authors embed the standard contact three-space into the cosphere bundle of the plane and consider a Legendrian knot or link at infinity in the cotangent bundle of the plane. Using this setup they define a Fukaya category of the cotangent bundle of the plane, whose objects are Lagrangians asymptotic to the knot living at infinity. They prove that their category is equivalent to sheaves in the plane constructible with respect to the stratification defined by the front diagram of the knot satisfying some microlocal conditions. This allows them to show that their category is invariant under Legendrian isotopies by applying results in [\textit{S. Guillermou} et al., Duke Math. J. 161, No. 2, 201--245 (2012; Zbl 1242.53108)]. They also give a combinatorial quiver-type description of their category where they can explicitly show invariance under Reidemeister moves, and they give a description of their category in terms of modules over the polynomial ring in two variables. They include several computations and examples, including one that shows their category distinguishes the Chekanov pair of Legendrian knots. Let \(M\) be a real analytic manifold and \(k\) a field. Let \(\Lambda \subseteq T^\infty M\) be a Legendrian submanifold of the cosphere bundle \(T^\infty M\), and let \(\mathbf{Sh}^\bullet_\Lambda (M,k)\) be the differential graded category of constructible sheaves of \(k\)-modules whose singular support intersects \(T^\infty M\) in \(\Lambda\). The authors prove the following. \smallskip\noindent \textbf{Theorem 1.1} A contactomorphism inducing a Legendrian isotopy induces a quasi-equivalence \[ \mathbf{Sh}^\bullet_\Lambda (M,k) \overset{\sim}{\rightarrow} \mathbf{Sh}^\bullet_{\Lambda'} (M,k). \] Now let \(M = \mathbb{R}^2\) or \(S^1 \times \mathbb{R}\). By fixing a Maslov potential on the front diagram of \(\Lambda\) the authors define a functor \[ \mu\text{mon}: \mathbf{Sh}^\bullet_\Lambda (M,k) \rightarrow Loc(\Lambda) \] to local systems of complexes of \(k\)-modules up to quasi-isomorphism on a Legendrian knot \(\Lambda\). Let \(\mathbf{Sh}^\bullet_\Lambda (M,k)_0\) be the full subcategory of \(\mathbf{Sh}^\bullet_\Lambda (M,k)\) whose objects have acyclic stalks for \(z\ll 0\), let \(\mathcal{C}_r(\Lambda)\) be the subcategory of rank-\(r\) objects, and define \[ \mathcal{M}_r(\Lambda) = \{F \in \mathbf{Sh}^\bullet_\Lambda (M,k)_0\mid \mu\text{mon}(F) \text{ is a rank-\(r\) local system in degree zero} \}. \] The authors prove the following. Proposition 1.2 If \(\Lambda\) has rotation number \(r\), then every element of \(\mathbf{Sh}^\bullet_\Lambda (M,k)\) is periodic with period \(2r\); in particular, if \(r \neq 0\), then there are no bounded complexes of sheaves in \(\mathbf{Sh}^\bullet_\Lambda (M,k)\). Proposition 1.3 If \(\Lambda\) is a stabilized Legendrian knot, then every element of \(\mathbf{Sh}^\bullet_\Lambda (M,k)\) is locally constant; in particular \(\mathbf{Sh}^\bullet_\Lambda (M,k)_0 = 0\). Proposition 1.4 When the front diagram of \(\Lambda\) carries a Maslov potential taking only the values \(0\) and \(1\), then every element of \(\mathcal{C}_r(\Lambda)\) is quasi-isomorphic to its zeroth cohomology sheaf. Moreover, the moduli spaces \(\mathcal{M}_r(\Lambda)\) are algebraic stacks. \smallskip Now consider the standard braid group \(Br_n\), let \(G = GL_{nr}\) where \(r\) is a fixed rank, and let \(BS(\beta)\) be the Bott-Samelson variety of a braid \(\beta\). The authors prove the following. Proposition 1.5 Let \(\beta\) be a positive braid. Then \(\mathcal{M}_r(\beta) = G \backslash BS(\beta)\). Theorem 1.6 Let \(\Lambda\) be the cylindrical closure of an \(n\)-stranded positive braid. Then the HOMFLY homology of \(\Lambda\) colored by \(r\) is the \(E_2\) page in the hypercohomology spectral sequence associated to the weight filtration of \(\pi_\ast \mathbb{Q}_{\mathcal{M}_r(\Lambda)}\). \smallskip The authors' category \(\mathbf{Sh}^\bullet_\Lambda (M,k)_0\) is a constructible-sheaf analogue of the Fukaya category near infinity, and it is related to Legendrian contact homology and the Chekanov-Eliashberg differential graded algebra, C-E dga. Referencing the augmentation variety \(V(\beta)\) of a positive braid \(\beta\) as in Section 3 of [\textit{M. B. Henry} and \textit{D. Rutherford}, J. Topol. 8, No. 1, 1--37 (2015; Zbl 1312.57033)] the authors prove the following, where \(\beta^\succ\) denotes the rainbow closure of a positive braid \(\beta\). Corollary 1.9 Let \(\beta\) be a positive braid, whose braid closure has \(c\) components. Let \(V(\beta)\) denote the augmentation variety of its C-E dga, as in [loc. cit., \S 3]. Then up to a power of \(q\) (indicated by a question mark below): \[ \# \mathcal{M}_1(\beta^\succ) (\mathbb{F}_q) = \# V_{\beta^\succ}(\mathbb{F}_q) \cdot q^? (q-1)^{-c} \] \smallskip Section 7 of the paper contains several examples and computations. One significant example is Proposition 1.12 If \(\Lambda\), \(\Lambda'\) are the two Chekanov knots, then \[ \mathbf{Sh}^\bullet_\Lambda (\mathbb{R}^2,k)_0 \not\cong \mathbf{Sh}^\bullet_{\Lambda'} (\mathbb{R}^2,k)_0. \] \smallskip Other examples give information about the HOMFLY polynomial of the rainbow closure of a positive braid on \(n\) strands with \(w\) crossings. The authors also prove a decomposition result for \(\mathcal{M}_1 (\Lambda)\), where \(\Lambda\) is the rainbow closure of a positive braid, and they discuss results that are proved in the preprints [\textit{L. Ng} et al. ``Augmentations are sheaves'', Preprint, \url{arXiv:1502.04939}; ``The cardinality of the augmentation category of a Legendrian link'', Preprint, \url{arXiv:1511.06724}].