arXiv subjects

Marc Kegel

Publications and source records attributed to Marc Kegel.

46 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

arXiv2020

A Boothby-Wang theorem for Besse contact manifolds

A Reeb flow on a contact manifold is called Besse if all its orbits are periodic, possibly with different periods. We characterize contact manifolds whose Reeb flows are Besse as principal S^1-orbibundles over integral symplectic orbifolds satisfying some cohomological condition. Apart from the cohomological condition this statement appears in the work of Boyer and Galicki in the language of Sasakian geometry. We illustrate some non-commonly dealt with perspective on orbifolds in a proof of the above result without referring to additional structures. More precisely, we work with orbifolds as quotients of manifolds by smooth Lie group actions with finite stabilizer groups. By introducing all relevant orbifold notions in this equivariant way we avoid patching constructions with orbifold charts. As an application, and building on work by Cristofaro-Gardiner--Mazzucchelli, we deduce a complete classification of closed Besse contact 3-manifolds up to strict contactomorphism.

math.SG↗

arXiv2020

Rotation numbers and the Euler class in open books

This paper introduces techniques for computing a variety of numerical invariants associated to a Legendrian knot in a contact manifold presented by an open book with a Morse structure. Such a Legendrian knot admits a front projection to the boundary of a regular neighborhood of the binding. From this front projection, we compute the rotation number for any null-homologous Legendrian knot as a count of oriented cusps and linking or intersection numbers; in the case that the manifold has non-trivial second homology, we can recover the rotation number with respect to a Seifert surface in any homology class. We also provide explicit formulas for computing the necessary intersection numbers from the front projection, and we compute the Euler class of the contact structure supported by the open book. Finally, we introduce a notion of Lagrangian projection and compute the classical invariants of a null-homologous Legendrian knot from its projection to a fixed page.

math.GT↗

arXiv2019

Symplectic dynamics and the 3-sphere

Given a knot in a closed connected orientable 3-manifold we prove that if the exterior of the knot admits an aperiodic contact form that is Euclidean near the boundary, then the 3-manifold is diffeomorphic to the 3-sphere and the knot is the unknot.

math.SG↗

arXiv2019

Handle homology of manifolds

We give an entirely geometric proof, without recourse to cellular homology, of the fact that $\partial^2=0$ in the chain complex defined by a handle decomposition of a given manifold. Topological invariance of the resulting `handle homology' is a consequence of Cerf theory.

math.GT↗

arXiv2019

Cosmetic contact surgeries along transverse knots and the knot complement problem

We study cosmetic contact surgeries along transverse knots in the standard contact 3-sphere, i.e. contact surgeries that yield again the standard contact 3-sphere. The main result is that we can exclude non-trivial cosmetic contact surgeries along all transverse knots not isotopic to the transverse unknot with self-linking number -1. As a corollary it follows that every transverse knot in the standard contact 3-sphere is determined by the contactomorphism type of its exteriors. Moreover, we give counterexamples to this for transverse links in the standard contact 3-sphere.

math.GT↗

arXiv2019

Computing rotation numbers in open books

We give explicit formulas and algorithms for the computation of the rotation number of a nullhomologous Legendrian knot on a page of a contact open book. On the way, we derive new formulas for the computation of the Thurston-Bennequin invariant of such knots and the Euler class and the d3-invariant of the underlying contact structure.

math.GT↗

arXiv2018

Parallelisability of 3-manifolds via surgery

We present two proofs that all closed, orientable 3-manifolds are parallelisable. Both are based on the Lickorish-Wallace surgery presentation; one proof uses a refinement due to Kaplan and some basic contact geometry. This complements a recent paper by Benedetti-Lisca.

math.GT↗

arXiv2018

The Legendrian knot complement problem

We prove that every Legendrian knot in the tight contact structure of the 3-sphere is determined by the contactomorphism type of its exterior. Moreover, by giving counterexamples we show this to be not true for Legendrian links in the tight 3-sphere. On the way a new user-friendly formula for computing the Thurston-Bennequin invariant of a Legendrian knot in a surgery diagram is given.

math.GT↗

arXiv2017

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.

math.GT↗

arXiv2016

Computing the Thurston-Bennequin invariant in open books

We give explicit formulas and algorithms for the computation of the Thurston-Bennequin invariant of a nullhomologous Legendrian knot on a page of a contact open book and on contact Heegaard surfaces. Furthermore, we extend the results to rationally nullhomologous knots in arbitrary 3-manifolds.

math.GT↗