On Legendrian foliations in contact manifolds. I: Singularities and neighborhood theorems (Q736761)

If \((M^{2n+1},\xi)\) is a \((2n+1)\)-dimensional contact manifold, \(\alpha\) is a contact 1-form such that \(\xi=\ker\alpha\), and \(Y^k\) is a closed \(k\)-dimensional submanifold, then \(Y_\xi\) is the characteristic distribution of \(\xi\) in \(TY\) if \(Y_\xi(p)=T_pY\cap\xi_p\) for all \(p\in Y\). A point \(p\in Y\) is singular if \(T_pY\subset\xi_p\). The set \(S(Y)=\{p\in Y;\;\alpha_{| Y}(p)=0\}\) is the set of singular points in \(Y\). A submanifold \(Y\subset M\) is called coisotropic if \(Y_\xi(p)\subset\xi_p\) is a coisotropic subspace with respect to the symplectic form \(d\alpha\), i.e., \((Y_\xi(p))^{\perp_{d\alpha}}\subset Y_\xi(p)\) for any \(p\in Y\), where \(\perp_{d\alpha}\) is the symplectic orthogonal complement. A coisotropic submanifold \((Y,\mathcal{F})\) of dimension \(n+1\) is called a Legendrian foliation because it naturally comes with a foliation \(\mathcal{F}\) with Legendrian leaves. In this paper, the author proves that if \(Y\subset(M^{2n+1},\xi)\) is an \((n+1)\)-dimensional closed orientable coisotropic submanifold and \(S(Y)\) is the set of singular points of the Legendrian foliation, then each path-connected component of \(S(Y)\) is one of the following: (i) a closed orientable \((n-1)\)-dimensional submanifold, (ii) an open orientable \((n-1)\)-dimensional submanifold, or (iii) a \(C^1\)-smooth compact \(n\)-dimensional Legendrian submanifold which may have nonempty boundary and may not be orientable. Moreover, in the cases (i) and (ii), the normal bundle of the \((n-1)\)-dimensional submanifold, viewed as a 2-disk bundle, is flat, and in the case (iii), each Legendrian component is isolated from the other singularities, and is equipped with a codimension-one foliation with isotropic leaves. For a Legendrian singularity with boundary, each boundary component is a closed leaf of the coisotropic foliation. Also, the author establishes existence and uniqueness results of germs of contact structures near Legendrian foliations, which is a special case of coisotropic submanifold. It is shown that if \((Y^{n+1},\mathcal{F})\) is a foliated manifold such that \(\mathcal{F}\) has normally controlled singularity, then: (i) there exists a rank-\(n\) real vector bundle \(E\) over \(Y\), and a contact structure \(\xi\) defined in a neighborhood of the 0-section such that \((Y,\mathcal{F})\) is a Legendrian foliation with respect to \(\xi\) (existence), (ii) if \(Y\subset M^{2n+1}\) is a submanifold, and \(\xi_0\), \(\xi_1\) are two contact structures on \(M\) such that \(\mathcal{F}\) is a Legendrian foliation with respect to both contact structures, then there exists a neighborhood \(\mathcal{U}_i(Y)\) of \(Y\), \(i=0,1\), and a diffeomorphism \(\varphi:\mathcal{U}_0(Y)\to\mathcal{U}_1(Y)\) such that \(\varphi(Y)=Y\) and \(\varphi^\ast (\xi_1)=\xi_0\) (uniqueness). Finally, the author shows that if \((Y,\mathcal{F})\subset(M,\xi)\) is a coisotropic submanifold such that \(\mathcal{F}\) is a nonsingular Legendrian foliation, then there is a one-to-one correspondence between coisotropic submanifolds \(C^1\)-close to \(Y\) in \(M\) and nonsingular foliations \(C^1\)-close to \(\mathcal{F}\) in \(Y\).