Right-veering diffeomorphisms of compact surfaces with boundary

DOI10.1007/S00222-007-0051-4MaRDI QIDQ2385045zbMATH OpenOpenAlexFDO

Authors Ko Honda, William H. Kazez, Gordana Matić

Publication date 11 October 2007

Published in Inventiones Mathematicae (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/math/0603626

3-manifold open book decomposition right-veering diffeomorphism tight contact structure

General geometric structures on manifolds (almost complex, almost product structures, etc.) (53C15) Global theory of symplectic and contact manifolds (53D35) General geometric structures on low-dimensional manifolds (57M50) Symplectic and contact topology in high or arbitrary dimension (57R17)

Abstract: We continue our study of the monoid of right-veering diffeomorphisms on a compact oriented surface with nonempty boundary, introduced in [HKM2]. We conduct a detailed study of the case when the surface is a punctured torus; in particular, we exhibit the difference between the monoid of right-veering diffeomorphisms and the monoid of products of positive Dehn twists, with the help of the Rademacher function. We then generalize to the braid group B_n on n strands by relating the signature and the Maslov index. Finally, we discuss the symplectic fillability in the pseudo-Anosov case by comparing with the work of Roberts [Ro1,Ro2].

Review text

Let \(S\) be a compact oriented surface with nonempty boundary, and let \(\Aut(S,\partial S)\) be the group of (isotopy classes of) diffeomorphisms of \(S\) which restrict to the identity on \(\partial S\). For two isotopy classes (relative to the endpoints) \(\alpha\) and \(\beta\) of properly embedded oriented arcs \([0, 1]\to S\) with a common initial point \(\alpha(0)=\beta(0)=x\in\partial S\), \(\beta\) is said to be the right of \(\alpha\) if either \(\alpha=\beta\) or the tangent vectors \((\dot\beta(0), \dot\alpha(0))\) define the orientation on \(T_xS\) after isotoping \(\alpha\) and \(\beta\) with endpoints fixed so that they intersect transversely and with the fewest possible number of intersections. A diffeomorphism \(h\in \Aut(S,\partial S)\) is called right-veering if every properly embedded arc \(\alpha\) on \(S\) is mapped to the right under \(h\) in the sense above. The set \(\text{Veer}(S,\partial S)\) of such diffeomorphisms is called the monoid of right-veering diffeomorphisms of \(S\). The main motivation to introduce these notions is motivated by Giroux's work [\textit{E. Giroux}, Proceedings of the international congress of mathematicians, ICM 2002, Beijing, China, August 20--28, 2002. Vol. II: Invited lectures. Beijing: Higher Education Press. 405--414 (2002; Zbl 1015.53049)] relating contact structures and open book decompositions. The paper under review proves a highly nontrivial result: a contact structure \(\xi\) on a closed oriented \(3\)-manifold \(M\) is tight if and only if all of its open book decomposition \((S,h)\) have right-veering \(h\in\Aut(S,\partial S)\), where \(S\) is a compact oriented surface with boundary and \(h\in\Aut(S,\partial S)\) is the monodromy map. From this and the characterization of Stein fillable contact structures by Giroux it follows that the monoid \(\text{Dehn}^+(S,\partial S)\) of \(S\) of product of positive Dehn twists is strictly contained in \textit{Veer}\((S,\partial S)\). The latter disproves a conjecture from \textit{J. Amorós, F. Bogomolov, L. Katzarkov} and \textit{T. Pantev} [J. Differ. Geom. 54, No. 3, 489--545 (2000; Zbl 1031.57021)].

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