Geometry of contact transformations and domains: orderability versus squeezing (Q860169)

The (non)-squeezing property in contact geometry is studied. The methods used by the authors include a new embedding technique in contact geometry as well as a generalized Floer homology theory which contains both cylindrical contact homology and Hamiltonian Floer homology. The main conclusion is that the existence or non-existence of the squeezing depends on the size of the considered domains: the contact non-squeezing exists on large scale and disappears on small scales. From the algebraic point of view the (non)-squeezing problem is connected with the existence of a natural partial order on the universal covering of the contactomorphism group of a contact manifold. It is shown, for example, that the standard contact sphere is non-orderable while the real projective space is orderable. After a discussion of the possibility to use loops of contactomorphisms as a squeezing tool for contact domains, it is proven that the ideal contact boundary of the \(n\)-stabilization of any Liouville manifold is not orderable. Then, the contact homology of the prequantization of a symplectic domain is expressed in terms of its filtrated symplectic homology. The results are applied to the study of prequantizations of unit ball bundles of closed manifolds in terms of the cohomology of free loop space. The (non)-squeezing of contact domains from the viewpoint of quantum mechanics is also discussed. Finally, a canonical semigroup associated to a contact manifold is introduced and it is shown that it carries footprints of a partial order even when the manifold is non-orderable.