On the Heegaard genus of contact 3-manifolds (Q657389)

An open book decomposition of a 3-manifold \(M\) induces a Heegard splitting and one may ask for the minimal genus of Heegard surfaces coming from open book decompositions -- this minimal genus is called the open book genus or contact genus \(cg(M)\) of \(M\). More specifically, if \((M,\xi)\) is a contact 3-manifold, then one may ask for the minimal genus of Heegard surfaces coming from open book decompositions supporting the given contact structure \(\xi\) -- this is called the Heegaard genus \(Hg(M,\xi)\). By Giroux' theorem there is a correspondence between contact structures and open book decompositions, which implies \(cg(M)=\min\{Hg(M,\xi)\}\), where the minimum is taken over all contact structures on \(M\). \textit{J. H. Rubinstein} [Turk. J. Math. 27, No. 1, 189--196 (2003; Zbl 1045.57008)] provided many 3-manifolds with Heegard genus 2 and contact genus \(>2\). In the paper under review the analogous question is considered for manifolds of Heegard genus 1 (Lens spaces) and it is shown that they satisfy \(cg(M)=1\) only if \(M\) is an oriented \(S^1\)-bundle over \(S^2\). Also more explicit examples of 3-manifolds with \(cg(M)= 2\) are constructed. For two contact 3-manifolds one can define their contact connected sum by removing a Darboux ball from each and gluing along the convex boundaries via an orientation reversing map carrying characteristic foliations to each other. The author proves that the Heegaard genus is sub-additive but not necessarily additive under contact connected sum of contact 3-manifolds. Similarly the contact genus is subadditive under connected sum and the author conjectures that it is actually additive.