The ghost stairs stabilize to sharp symplectic embedding obstructions

DOI10.1112/TOPO.12055MaRDI QIDQ4576147zbMATHOpenAlexWikidataFDO

Authors Daniel Cristofaro-Gardiner, Dusa McDuff, R. Hind

Publication date 12 July 2018

Published in Journal of Topology (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/1702.03607

zbMATH Keywords

embedded contact homologysymplectic embeddings

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Symplectic manifolds (general theory) (53D05) Symplectic and contact topology in high or arbitrary dimension (57R17)

Abstract: In determining when a four-dimensional ellipsoid can be symplectically embedded into a ball, McDuff and Schlenk found an infinite sequence of "ghost" obstructions that generate an infinite "ghost staircase" determined by the even index Fibonacci numbers. The ghost obstructions are not visible for the four-dimensional embedding problem because strictly stronger obstructions also exist. We show that in contrast, the embedding constraints associated to the ghost obstructions are sharp for the stabilized problem; moreover, the corresponding optimal embeddings are given by symplectic folding. The proof introduces several ideas of independent interest, namely: (i) an improved version of the index inequality familiar from the theory of embedded contact homology (ECH), (ii) new applications of relative intersection theory in the context of neck stretching analysis, (iii) a new approach to estimating the ECH grading of multiply covered elliptic orbits in terms of areas and continued fractions, and (iv) a new technique for understanding the ECH of ellipsoids by constructing explicit bijections between certain sets of lattice points.

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Cited in

(14)

• Gromov width of symplectic toric manifolds associated with graphs
• Sub-leading asymptotics of ECH capacities
• Higher symplectic capacities and the stabilized embedding problem for integral ellipsoids
• Staircase patterns in Hirzebruch surfaces
• Essential tori in spaces of symplectic embeddings
• Infinite staircases in the symplectic embedding problem for four-dimensional ellipsoids into polydisks
• Special eccentricities of rational four-dimensional ellipsoids
• Correction to: ``New obstructions to symplectic embeddings
• Ehrhart functions and symplectic embeddings of ellipsoids
• Irreversibility from staircases in symplectic embeddings
• A remark on the stabilized symplectic embedding problem for ellipsoids
• Counting curves with local tangency constraints
• Infinite staircases for Hirzebruch surfaces
• Higher symplectic capacities and the stabilized embedding problem for integral ellipsoids

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