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Kai Zehmisch

Publications and source records attributed to Kai Zehmisch.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources
arXiv2017

Reeb dynamics inspired by Katok's example in Finsler geometry

Inspired by Katok's examples of Finsler metrics with a small number of closed geodesics, we present two results on Reeb flows with finitely many periodic orbits. The first result is concerned with a contact-geometric description of magnetic flows on the 2-sphere found recently by Benedetti. We give a simple interpretation of that work in terms of a quaternionic symmetry. In the second part, we use Hamiltonian circle actions on symplectic manifolds to produce compact, connected contact manifolds in dimension at least five with arbitrarily large numbers of periodic Reeb orbits. This contrasts sharply with recent work by Cristofaro-Gardiner, Hutchings and Pomerleano on Reeb flows in dimension three. With the help of Hamiltonian plugs and a surgery construction due to Laudenbach we reprove a result of Cieliebak: one can produce Hamiltonian flows in dimension at least five with any number of periodic orbits; in dimension three, with any number greater than one.

math.DS↗
arXiv2017

Two constructions of virtually contact structures

Motivated by recent developments in proving the Weinstein conjecture we introduce the notion of covering contact connected sum for virtually contact manifolds and construct virtually contact structures on boundaries of subcritical handle bodies.

math.SG↗
arXiv2017

Finsler geodesics, periodic Reeb orbits, and open books

We survey some results on the existence (and non-existence) of periodic Reeb orbits on contact manifolds, both in the open and closed case. We place these statements in the context of Finsler geometry by including a proof of the folklore theorem that the Finsler geodesic flow can be interpreted as a Reeb flow. As a mild extension of previous results we present existence statements on periodic Reeb orbits on contact manifolds with suitable supporting open books.

math.DS↗
arXiv2016

The diffeomorphism type of symplectic fillings

We show that simply connected contact manifolds that are subcritically Stein fillable have a unique symplectically aspherical filling up to diffeomorphism. Various extensions to manifolds with non-trivial fundamental group are discussed. The proof rests on homological restrictions on symplectic fillings derived from a degree-theoretic analysis of the evaluation map on a suitable moduli space of holomorphic spheres. Applications of this homological result include a proof that compositions of right-handed Dehn twists on Liouville domains are of infinite order in the symplectomorphism group. We also derive uniqueness results for subcritical Stein fillings up to homotopy equivalence and, under some topological assumptions on the contact manifold, up to diffeomorphism or symplectomorphism.

math.SG↗
arXiv2016

Analytic filling of totally real tori

We prove that any embedded Maslov index two analytic disc attached to a totally real torus in the complex two-dimensional affine space extends to an analytic filling provided that the torus is contained in a regular level set of a strictly plurisubharmonic function.

math.CV↗
arXiv2015

Linking and closed orbits

We show that the Lagrangian of classical mechanics on a Riemannian manifold of bounded geometry carries a periodic solution of motion with rescribed energy, provided the potential satisfies an asymptotic growth condition, changes sign, and the negative set of the potential is non-trivial in the relative homology.

math.DS↗
arXiv2015

On the existence of periodic orbits for magnetic systems on the two-sphere

We prove that there exist periodic orbits on almost all compact regular energy levels of a Hamiltonian function defined on a twisted cotangent bundle over the two-sphere. As a corollary, given any Riemannian two-sphere and a magnetic field on it, there exists a closed magnetic geodesic for almost all kinetic energy levels.

math.SG↗
arXiv2014

The Weinstein conjecture for connected sums

We prove the Weinstein conjecture for non-trivial contact connected sums under either of two topological conditions: non-trivial fundamental group or torsion-free homology.

math.SG↗
arXiv2014

Holomorphic jets in symplectic manifolds

We define pointwise partial differential relations for holomorphic discs. Given a relative homotopy class, a relation, and a generic almost complex structure we provide the moduli space of discs which have an injective point with the structure of a smooth manifold. Applications to the local behaviour are given and an adjunction inequality for singularities is derived. Moreover, we show that for a coordinate class of a monotone Lagrangian split torus generically the number of non-immersed holomorphic discs is even.

math.SG↗
arXiv2014

Reeb dynamics detects odd balls

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.

math.SG↗
arXiv2013

How to recognise a 4-ball when you see one

We apply the method of filling with holomorphic discs to a 4-dimensional symplectic cobordism with the standard contact 3-sphere as a convex boundary component. We establish the following dichotomy: either the cobordism is diffeomorphic to a ball, or there is a periodic Reeb orbit of quantifiably short period in the concave boundary of the cobordism. This allows us to give a unified treatment of various results concerning Reeb dynamics on contact 3-manifolds, symplectic fillability, the topology of symplectic cobordisms, symplectic non-squeezing, and the non-existence of exact Lagrangian surfaces in standard symplectic 4-space.

math.SG↗
arXiv2013

Discontinuous symplectic capacities

We show that the spherical capacity is discontinuous on a smooth family of ellipsoidal shells. Moreover, we prove that the shell capacity is discontinuous on a family of open sets with smooth connected boundaries.

math.SG↗
arXiv2013

Lagrangian non-squeezing and a geometric inequality

We prove that if the unit codisc bundle of a closed Riemannian manifold embeds symplectically into a symplectic cylinder of radius one then the length of the shortest nontrivial closed geodesic is at most half the area of the unit disc.

math.SG↗
arXiv2013

The codisc radius capacity

We define a capacity which measures the size of Weinstein tubular neighbourhoods of Lagrangian submanifolds. In symplectic vector spaces this leads to bounds on the codisc radius for any closed Lagrangian submanifold in terms of Viterbo's isoperimetric inequality. Moreover, we prove a generalization of Gromov's packing inequality concerning symplectic embeddings of the boundaries of two balls of equal radius into the open unit ball. If the interior components of the image spheres are disjoint, then the radii are less than the square root of one half. Furthermore, we introduce the spherical variant of the relative Gromov radius and prove finiteness for monotone Lagrangian tori in symplectic vector spaces.

math.SG↗