On fundamental groups of symplectically aspherical manifolds (Q706121)

The authors study fundamental groups of closed manifolds \(M\) which admit a symplectic form \(\omega\) with \(\omega| _{\pi_2(M)}=0\), and call such groups symplectically aspherical. The trivial group is not symplectically aspherical. The authors find some properties of symplectically aspherical groups and then present several examples. Among the examples, the following two constructions are mentioned: 1) Let \(F_1, F_2\) be closed oriented surfaces and \(\pi=\pi_1(N)\) with \(N\), symplectically aspherical manifold. Then the symplectic sum of \(N\times F_1\) and \(N\times F_2\) due to \textit{R. Gompf} [Ann. Math. (2) 142, 527--595 (1995; Zbl 0849.53027)] is a symplectically aspherical manifold, and therefore the amalgamated product \((\pi_1(F_1)\times\pi)*_{\pi} (\pi\times\pi_1(F_2))\) is symplectically aspherical. 2) Let \(\xi=\{\Sigma_g\to M@>p>>B\}\) be a smooth oriented locally trivial bundle over a compact symplectic manifold, with fiber a closed oriented surface \(\Sigma_g\) of genus \(g>1\). Then \(\xi\) is a Thurston bundle due to \textit{D. McDuff} and \textit{D. Salamon} [Introduction to symplectic topology, Oxford Mathematical monographs, Clarendon Press, Oxford (1995; Zbl 0844.58029)], and \(\pi_1(M)\) is a semi-direct product of \(\pi_1(\Sigma_g)\) by \(\pi_1(B)\), which is symplectically aspherical.