Reeb dynamics detects odd balls

DOI10.2422/2036-2145.201404_006MaRDI QIDQ2807115zbMATH OpenOpenAlexFDO

Authors Hansjörg Geiges, Kai Zehmisch

Publication date 19 May 2016

Published in Annali della Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa. Classe di Scienze. Serie V (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/1401.3598

zbMATH Keywords

odd-dimensional ballshort periodic Reeb orbits

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

Periodic orbits of vector fields and flows (37C27) Contact systems (37J55) Global theory of symplectic and contact manifolds (53D35) Symplectic and contact topology in high or arbitrary dimension (57R17)

Abstract: We give a dynamical characterisation of odd-dimensional balls within the class of all contact manifolds whose boundary is a standard even-dimensional sphere. The characterisation is in terms of the non-existence of short periodic Reeb orbits.

Review text

The authors of the paper under review consider compact, connected \((2n + 1)\)-dimensional manifold \((M, \alpha)\) with the property that the boundary of \(M\) is diffeomorphic to the \(2n\)-dimensional sphere and they provide a criterion for \(M\) to be diffeomorphic to a ball. More precisely, they prove that if the infimum of all positive periods of contractible closed orbits of the Reeb vector field associated to \(\alpha\) is greater or equal than \(\pi\), and \(\partial M\) diffeomorphic to \(S^{2n}\) admits a contact embedding into the contact cylinder NEWLINE\[NEWLINE\left(\mathbb R\times D\times \mathbb C^{n-1}, db+\frac{1}{2}(x_0dy_0-y_0dx_0)-\sum_{j=1}^{n-1}y_jdx_j\right),NEWLINE\]NEWLINE where \(D\subset \mathbb R^2\) is the closed unit disc, then \(M\) is diffeomorphic to a ball.NEWLINENEWLINENote that in dimension three this result has already been proven in [\textit{Y. Eliashberg} and \textit{H. Hofer}, Differ. Integral Equ. 7, No. 5--6, 1303--1324 (1994; Zbl 0803.58045)]. In the same paper, Eliashberg and Hofer have also announced a higher-dimensional version of it under the assumption that \(H_2(M,\mathbb R)\) vanishes, but a proof has never been published.NEWLINENEWLINEIn addition, observe that the bound \(\pi\) in the result of the paper under review is optimal, and that in dimension three the main result can be strengthened, i.e., given that the infimum of all positive periods of contractible closed orbits of the Reeb vector field associated to \(\alpha\) is greater of equal than \(\pi\), one gets that there are no closed Reeb orbits at all (this formulation appears in [loc. cit.]).

Recommendations

• A remark on the Reeb flow for spheres
• Controlled Reeb dynamics -- three lectures not in Cala Gonone
• Dynamically exotic contact spheres in dimensions \(\geq 7\)
• A note on Reeb dynamics on the tight 3-sphere
• On the existence of disk-like global sections for Reeb flows on the tight 3-sphere

Cited in

(10)

• A Hamiltonian characterization of the three-ball
• Finsler geodesics, periodic Reeb orbits, and open books
• Diffeomorphism type via aperiodicity in Reeb dynamics
• Symplectic dynamics and the 3-sphere
• Polyfolds, cobordisms, and the strong Weinstein conjecture
• Periodic orbits in virtually contact structures
• Diffeomorphism type of symplectic fillings of unit cotangent bundles
• Diffeomorphism type via aperiodicity in Reeb dynamics
• Non-fillability of overtwisted contact manifolds via polyfolds
• Gromov compactness for holomorphic discs with totally real boundary conditions

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