Joshua Marc Sabloff

Augmentations and rulings of Legendrian Knots

A connection between holomorphic and generating family invariants of Legendrian knots is established; namely, that the existence of a ruling (or decomposition) of a Legendrian knot is equivalent to the existence of an augmentation of its contact homology. This result was obtained independently and using different methods by Fuchs and Ishkhanov [12]. Close examination of the proof yields an algorithm for constructing a ruling given an augmentation. Finally, a condition for the existence of an augmentation in terms of the rotation number is obtained.

A duality exact sequence for legendrian contact homology

We establish a long exact sequence for Legendrian submanifolds L in P x R, where P is an exact symplectic manifold, which admit a Hamiltonian isotopy that displaces the projection of L off of itself. In this sequence, the singular homology H_* maps to linearized contact cohomology CH^* which maps to linearized contact homology CH_* which maps to singular homology. In particular, the sequence implies a duality between the kernel of the map (CH_*\to H_*) and the cokernel of the map (H_* \to CH^*). Furthermore, this duality is compatible with Poincare duality in L in the following sense: the Poincare dual of a singular class which is the image of a in CH_* maps to a class \alpha in CH^* such that \alpha(a)=1. The exact sequence generalizes the duality for Legendrian knots in Euclidean 3-space [24] and leads to a refinement of the Arnold Conjecture for double points of an exact Lagrangian admitting a Legendrian lift with linearizable contact homology, first proved in [6].

Product structures for Legendrian contact homology

Legendrian contact homology (LCH) is a powerful non-classical invariant of Legendrian knots. Linearization makes the LCH computationally tractable at the expense of discarding nonlinear (and non-commutative) information. To recover some of the nonlinear information while preserving computability, we introduce invariant cup and Massey products – and, more generally, an A∞ structure – on the linearized LCH. We apply the products and A∞ structure in three ways: to find infinite families of Legendrian knots that are not isotopic to their Legendrian mirrors, to reinterpret the duality theorem of the fourth author in terms of the cup product, and to recover higher-order linearizations of the LCH.

Lagrangian cobordisms via generating families: Construction and geography

Embedded Lagrangian cobordisms between Legendrian submanifolds are produced by isotopy, spinning, and handle-attachment constructions that employ the technique of generating families. Moreover, any Legendrian with a generating family has an immersed Lagrangian filling with a compatible generating family. These constructions are applied in several directions, in particular to a nonclassical geography question: any graded group satisfying a duality condition can be realized as the generating family homology of a connected Legendrian submanifold in R 2nC1 or in the 1‐jet

Obstructions to Lagrangian cobordisms between Legendrians via generating families

The technique of generating families produces obstructions to the existence of embedded Lagrangian cobordisms between Legendrian submanifolds in the symplectizations of 1-jet bundles. In fact, generating families may be used to construct a TQFT-like theory that, in addition to giving the aforementioned obstructions, yield structural information about invariants of Legendrian submanifolds. For example, the obstructions devised in this paper show that there is no generating family compatible Lagrangian cobordism between the Chekanov-Eliashberg Legendrian

Positive knots and Lagrangian fillability

m(5_2)

The minimal length of a Lagrangian cobordism between Legendrians

knots. Further, the generating family cohomology groups of a Legendrian submanifold restrict the topology of a Lagrangian filling. Structurally, the generating family cohomology of a Legendrian submanifold satisfies a type of Alexander duality that, when the Legendrian is null-cobordant, can be seen as Poincare duality of the associated Lagrangian filling. This duality implies the Arnold Conjecture for Legendrian submanifolds with linear-at-infinity generating families. The results are obtained by developing a generating family version of wrapped Floer cohomology and establishing long exact sequences that arise from viewing the the spaces underlying these cohomology groups as mapping cones.

Legendrian contact homology in Seifert fibered spaces

This paper explores the relationship between the existence of an exact embedded Lagrangian filling for a Legendrian knot in the standard contact

Lagrangian fillings of Legendrian 4-plat knots

\rr^3

Invariants of Legendrian Knots and Coherent Orientations

and the hierarchy of positive, strongly quasi-positive, and quasi-positive knots. On one hand, results of Eliashberg and especially Boileau and Orevkov show that every Legendrian knot with an exact, embedded Lagrangian filling is quasi-positive. On the other hand, we show that if a knot type is positive, then it has a Legendrian representative with an exact embedded Lagrangian filling. Further, we produce examples that show that strong quasi-positivity and fillability are independent conditions.