Vassiliev invariants of Legendrian, transverse, and framed knots in contact three-manifolds

We show that for a large class of contact three-manifolds the groups of Vassiliev invariants of Legendrian and of framed knots are canonically isomorphic. As a corollary, we obtain that the group of finite order Arnold's J⁺-type invariants of wave fronts on a surface F is isomorphic to the group of Vassiliev invariants of framed knots in the spherical cotangent bundle ST∗F of F.On the other hand, we construct the first examples of contact manifolds for which Vassiliev invariants of Legendrian knots can distinguish Legendrian knots that realize isotopic framed knots and are homotopic as Legendrian immersions.     

Second variation and Legendrian stabilities of minimal Legendrian submanifolds in Sasakian manifolds

First, we derive a new second variation formula which holds for minimal Legendrian submanifolds in Sasakian manifolds. Using this, we prove that any minimal Legendrian submanifold in an η-Einstein Sasakian manifold with “nonpositive” η-Ricci constant is stable. Next we introduce the notion of the Legendrian stability of minimal Legendrian submanifolds in Sasakian manifolds. Using our second variation formula, we find a general criterion for the Legendrian stability of minimal Legendrian submanifolds in η-Einstein Sasakian manifolds with “positive” η-Ricci constant.     

A minimizing deformation of Legendrian submanifolds in the standard sphere

In this note we study the moduli space of minimal Legendrian submanifolds in the standard sphere S²ⁿ⁻¹. We show that new examples of minimal Legendrian submanifolds can be constructed, if we can solve a certain equation for a function on a nearby glued Legendrian submanifold. As a step toward solving this equation, we prove short-time existence for a particular gradient flow on the space of immersed Legendrian submanifolds. A new necessary condition for a Lagrangian embedding into is given.     

The Gauss map of a hypersurface in Euclidean sphere and the spherical Legendrian duality

We investigate the Gauss map of a hypersurface in Euclidean n-sphere as an application of the theory of Legendrian singularities. We can interpret the image of the Gauss map as the wavefront set of a Legendrian immersion into a certain contact manifold. We interpret the geometric meaning of the singularities of the Gauss map from this point of view.     

An infinite family of Legendrian torus knots distinguished by cube number

For a knot K the cube number is a knot invariant defined to be the smallest n for which there is a cube diagram of size n for K. There is also a Legendrian version of this invariant called the Legendrian cube number. We will show that the Legendrian cube number distinguishes the Legendrian left hand torus knots with maximal Thurston-Bennequin number and maximal rotation number from the Legendrian left hand torus knots with maximal Thurston-Bennequin number and minimal rotation number.     

Diffeomorphisms preserving R‐circles in three dimensional CR manifolds

R ‐circles in (non‐degenerate) three dimensional CR manifolds are the analogues to traces of Lagrangian totally geodesic planes on S³ viewed as the boundary of two dimensional complex hyperbolic space. They form a family of certain Legendrian curves on the manifold. We prove that a diffeomorphism between three dimensional CR manifolds which preserve circles is either a CR diffeomorphism or a conjugate CR diffeomorphism.     

Legendrian tori and the semi-classical limit

Let X be CPn or a compact smooth quotient of the n-dimensional complex hyperbolic space, n>1. Let L be a hermitian holomorphic line bundle (with hermitian connection) on X chosen as follows: if X=CPn then L is the hyperplane bundle, and in the second case L is chosen so that L⊗(n+1)=KX⊗E, where KX is the canonical line bundle and E is a flat line bundle. The unit circle bundle P in L^∗ is a contact manifold. Let k^′ be a fixed positive integer. We construct certain Legendrian tori in P (the construction depends, in particular, on the choice of k^′) and sequences {uk}, k=k^′m, , of holomorphic sections of L⊗k associated to these tori. We study asymptotics of the norms ‖ukk_‖ as m→+∞ and, in particular, apply this result to construct explicitly certain non-trivial holomorphic automorphic forms on the n-dimensional complex hyperbolic space. We obtain an n>1 analogue of the classical period formula (this is a well-known statement for automorphic forms on the upper half plane, n=1).     

Averaging of Legendrian Submanifolds of Contact Manifolds

We give a procedure to ‘average’ canonically C¹-close Legendrian submanifolds of contact manifolds. As a corollary we obtain that, whenever a compact group action leaves a Legendrian submanifold almost invariant, there is an invariant Legendrian submanifold nearby. Mathematics Subject Classification (2000): 53D10.     

Lagrangian caps

We establish an h-principle for exact Lagrangian embeddings with concave Legendrian boundary. We prove, in particular, that in the complement of the unit ball B in the standard symplectic ${\mathbb{R}^{2n}, 2n \geq 6}$ R 2 n , 2 n ≥ 6 , there exists an embedded Lagrangian n-disc transversely attached to B along its Legendrian boundary, which is loose in the sense of Murphy (Loose Legendrian embeddings in high dimensional contact manifolds, arXiv:1201.2245, 2013).     

On Willmore Legendrian surfaces in $$\mathbb {S}^5$$ and the contact stationary Legendrian Willmore surfaces

In this paper we study Willmore Legendrian surfaces (that is Legendrian surfaces which are critical points of the Willmore functional). We use an equality proved in Luo (arXiv:1211.4227v6) to get a relation between Willmore Legendrian surfaces and contact stationary Legendrian surfaces in \(\mathbb {S}^5\), and then we use this relation to prove a classification result for Willmore Legendrian spheres in \(\mathbb {S}^5\). We also get an integral inequality for Willmore Legendrian surfaces and in particular we prove that if the square length of the second fundamental form of a Willmore Legendrian surface in \(\mathbb {S}^5\) belongs to [0, 2], then it must be 0 and L is totally geodesic or 2 and L is a flat minimal Legendrian tori, which generalizes the result of Yamaguchi et al. (Proc Am Math Soc 54:276–280, 1976). We also study variation of the Willmore functional among Legendrian surfaces in 5-dimensional Sasakian manifolds. Let \(\Sigma \) be a closed surface and \((M,\alpha ,g_\alpha ,J)\) a 5-dimensional Sasakian manifold with a contact form \(\alpha \), an associated metric \(g_\alpha \) and an almost complex structure J. Assume that \(f:\Sigma \mapsto M\) is a Legendrian immersion. Then f is called a contact stationary Legendrian Willmore surface (in short, a csL Willmore surface) if it is a critical point of the Willmore functional under contact deformations. To investigate the existence of csL Willmore surfaces we introduce a higher order flow which preserves the Legendre condition and decreases the Willmore energy. As a first step we prove that this flow is well posed if \((M,\alpha ,g_\alpha ,J)\) is a Sasakian Einstein manifold, in particular \(\mathbb {S}^5\).     

Isomorphism of the Groups of Vassiliev Invariants of Legendrian and Pseudo-Legendrian Knots

The study of the Vassiliev invariants of Legendrian knots was started by D. Fuchs and S. Tabachnikov who showed that the groups of C-valued Vassiliev invariants of Legendrian and of framed knots in the standard contact R³ are canonically isomorphic. Recently we constructed the first examples of contact 3-manifolds where Vassiliev invariants of Legendrian and of framed knots are different. Moreover in these examples Vassiliev invariants of Legendrian knots distinguish Legendrian knots that are isotopic as framed knots and homotopic as Legendrian immersions. This raised the question what information about Legendrian knots can be captured using Vassiliev invariants. Here we answer this question by showing that for any contact 3-manifold with a cooriented contact structure the groups of Vassiliev invariants of Legendrian knots and of knots that are nowhere tangent to a vector field that coorients the contact structure are canonically isomorphic.     

Toric Legendrian Subvarieties

We give the full classification of smooth toric Legendrian subvarieties in P^2n-1. We also prove that under some minor assumptions the group of linear automorphisms preserving a given Legendrian subvariety preserves the contact structure of the ambient projective space.     

Legendrian Links, Causality, and the Low Conjecture

Let (X ^m+1, g) be a globally hyperbolic spacetime with Cauchy surface diffeomorphic to an open subset of ${\mathbb{R}^{m}}Let (X ^m+1, g) be a globally hyperbolic spacetime with Cauchy surface diffeomorphic to an open subset of \mathbbR^m{\mathbb{R}^{m}} . The Legendrian Low conjecture formulated by Natário and Tod says that two events x, y ? X{x, y \in X} are causally related if and only if the Legendrian link of spheres \mathfrakS_x, \mathfrakS_y{{\mathfrak{S}_x,\,\mathfrak{S}_y}} whose points are light geodesics passing through x and y is non-trivial in the contact manifold of all light geodesics in X. The Low conjecture says that for m = 2 the events x, y are causally related if and only if \mathfrakS_x, \mathfrakS_y{{\mathfrak{S}_x,\,\mathfrak{S}_y}} is non-trivial as a topological link. We prove the Low and the Legendrian Low conjectures. We also show that similar statements hold for any globally hyperbolic (X ^m+1, g) such that a cover of its Cauchy surface is diffeomorphic to an open domain in \mathbbR^m{\mathbb{R}^{m}} .     

Computing rotation and self-linking numbers in contact surgery diagrams

We give an explicit formula to compute the rotation number of a nullhomologous Legendrian knot in contact (1/n)-surgery diagrams along Legendrian links and obtain a corresponding result for the self-linking number of transverse knots. Moreover, we extend the formula by Ding–Geiges–Stipsicz for computing the d₃-invariant to (1/n)-surgeries.     

Positive open book decompositions of Stein fillable 3-manifolds along prescribed links

It is known by Loi and Piergallini that a closed, oriented, smooth 3-manifold is Stein fillable if and only if it has a positive open book decomposition. In the present paper we will show that for every link L in a Stein fillable 3-manifold there exists an additional knot L^′ to L such that the link L∪L^′ is the binding of a positive open book decomposition of the Stein fillable 3-manifold. To prove the assertion, we will use the divide, which is a generalization of real morsification theory of complex plane curve singularities, and 2-handle attachings along Legendrian curves.     

Legendrian Knots in Overtwisted Contact Structures on S3

We study the problem of classifying Legendrian knots in overtwisted contact structures on S ³. The question is whether topologically isotopic Legendrian knots have to be Legendrian isotopic if they have equal values of the well-known invariants rot and tb. We give positive answer in the case that there is an overtwisted disc intersecting none of the knots and we construct an example of a knot intersecting each overtwisted disc (this provides a counterexample to the conjecture of Eliashberg). Our proof needs some results on the structure of the group of contactomorphisms of S ³. We divide the subgroup Cont₊(S ³, ) of coorientation-preserving contactomorphisms for an overtwisted contact distribution into two classes.     

Equivariant gluing constructions of contact stationary Legendrian submanifolds in $${\mathbb {S}^{2n+1}}$$

A contact-stationary Legendrian submanifold of is a Legendrian submanifold whose volume is stationary under contact deformations. The simplest contact-stationary Legendrian submanifold (actually minimal Legendrian) is the real, equatorial n-sphere S ₀. This paper develops a method for constructing contact-stationary (but not minimal) Legendrian submanifolds of by gluing together configurations of sufficiently many many U(n + 1)-rotated copies of S ₀. Two examples of the construction, corresponding to finite cyclic subgroups of U(n + 1) are given. The resulting submanifolds are very symmetric; are geometrically akin to a ‘necklace’ of copies of S ₀ attached to each other by narrow necks and winding a large number of times around before closing up on themselves; and are topologically equivalent to .     

Extensions of the mandala of Legendrian dualities for pseudo-spheres in Lorentz-Minkowski space

In this paper we define one-parameter families of Legendrian double fibrations in the products of pseudo-spheres in Lorentz-Minkowski space which are the extensions of four Legendrian double fibrations in the previous research (Izumiya, 2009 [9]). We show that these are contact diffeomorphic to each other. Moreover, we construct one-parameter families of new extrinsic differential geometries on spacelike hypersurfaces in these pseudo-spheres as applications of such extensions of the Legendrian double fibrations.