On contact mapping classes of prequantizations (Q6936498)

The paper contributes to the question of the topology of the group of contactomorphisms inside the group of all diffeomorphisms of a given contact manifold. Specifically, the main result (Theorem 1.3) gives a class of examples where the kernel of the induced map between the mapping class groups has infinite kernel. The examples are prequantization bundles \((V,\xi)\) over products of \(\mathbb{C}P^n\) with closed orientable surfaces \(\Sigma_g\) (\(g\ge 2\)). The kernel of the map contains a lattice in \(H^1_{dR}(\Sigma_g,\mathbb{Z})\) of index at most 2. This is shown by constructing an injective map from \(H^1_{dR}(\Sigma_g,\mathbb{Z})\) into the contact mapping class group of \((V,\xi)\).\N\NTheorem 1.1 gives a criterion when the contact mapping class group of a prequantization bundle is ``sufficiently large''. More precisely, it is shown that the contact mapping class group contains the injective image of the first de Rham cohomology of the base if several topological conditions are satisfied.