The topology of the space of symplectic balls in rational 4-manifolds (Q707491)

The authors study the space of symplectic embeddings of 4-dimensional symplectic balls into symplectic manifolds. More precisely, let \(B(c)\) be a 4-ball in \({\mathbb R}^4\) of radius \(r\) and capacity \(c=\pi r^2\) equipped with restriction of the standard symplectic form from \({\mathbb R}^4\). Let \(\omega\) be the standard symplectic form on \(S^2\) with area equal to 1, and let \(M_{\mu}\) be the symplectic manifold \((S^2\times S^2, \mu p_1^*\omega+p_2^*\omega)\), where \(p_1, p_2: S^2\times S^2\to S^2\) are the obvious projections. Let \(\text{Emb}_{\omega}(c, \mu)\) be the space of all symplectic embeddings of \(B(c)\) in \(M_{\mu}\), equipped with \(C^{\infty}\)-topology. Denote by \(i_c, c<1\) the standard symplectic embedding of \(B(c)\) into \(M_{\mu}\). Denote by \(\widetilde M_{\mu, c}\) the blow-up of \(M_{\mu}\) along the ball \(i_c\) and by \(\text{Symp}(\widetilde M_{\mu,c})\) the group of its symplectomorphisms. Typical results are the following: Theorem 1.1. The group \(\text{Symp}(\widetilde M_{\mu=1,c})\) has the homotopy type of the semidirect product \(T^2\times {\mathbb Z}/2{\mathbb Z}\). It is interesting, however, that, for \(\mu>1\), the homotopy type of \(\text{Symp}(\widetilde M_{\mu,c})\) changes when \(c\) passes the critical value \(\mu-1\). Theorem 1.4. For \(\mu\in(1,2)\), the rational cohomology ring of \(\text{Symp}(\widetilde M_{\mu,c})\) is isomorphic to the ring \(\Lambda(\alpha_1, \alpha_2, \alpha_3)\otimes {\mathbb Q}[\varepsilon]\) where \(\deg \alpha_i=1\) and \(\deg \varepsilon=4\) for \(c\in(0, \mu-1)\), \(\deg \varepsilon=2\) for \(c\in (\mu-1,1)\). This result extends the result of \textit{M. Abreu} [Invent. Math. 131, No. 1, 1--23 (1998; Zbl 0902.53025)] to blown-up spaces. Corollary 1.5. For any given value of \(\mu\in(1,2)\), the restriction map \(\text{Emb}_{\omega}(c', \mu) \to \text{Emb}_{\omega}(c, \mu)\) is not a homotopy equivalence whenever \(c<\mu-1\) and \(c'>\mu-1\). Theorem 1.6. Given \(\mu, \mu'\in(1,2]\), \(c,c'\in (0,1]\), assume that \(c\geq\mu-1\) and \(c'\geq\mu'-1\). Then there are natural homotopy equivalences \(\text{ Emb}_{\omega}(c', \mu') \to \text{Emb}_{\omega}(c, \mu)\) and \(\text{Symp}(\widetilde M_{\mu', c'})\to \text{Symp}(\widetilde M_{\mu, c})\).