Contact cuts (Q5951480)

The author describes a contact analog of the symplectic cut construction introduced in [\textit{E. Lerman}, Math. Res. Lett. 2, 247-258 (1995; Zbl 0835.53034)]. This construction has the properties one would wish, for example (2.20) of the above mentioned paper for a contact manifold with a circle action preserving the contact form. Further, the symplectization of a (contact) cut is symplectomorphic to the corresponding (symplectic) cut of the symplectization of the contact manifold. As well there is a contact analog to symplectic gluing. The contact cuts are used to produce countably many non-conjugate 2-tori in the group of contactomorphisms of the (unique) overtwisted co-oriented contact structure on \(S^3\) which is homotopic to the standard contact structure as a 2-plane field.