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Abstract A venerable problem in combinatorics and geometry asks whether a given incidence relation may be realized by a configuration of points and lines. The classic version of this would ask for lines in a projective plane over a field. An important variation allows for pseudolines: embedded circles (isotopic to $$\mathbb R\rm{P}^1$$) in the real projective plane. In this article we investigate whether a configuration is realized by a collection of 2-spheres embedded, in symplectic, smooth, and topological categories, in the complex projective plane. We find obstructions to the existence of topologically locally flat spheres realizing a configuration, and show for instance that the combinatorial configuration corresponding to the projective plane over any finite field is not realized. Such obstructions are used to show that a particular contact structure on certain graph manifolds is not (strongly) symplectically fillable. We also show that a configuration of real pseudolines can be complexified to give a configuration of smooth, indeed symplectically embedded, 2-spheres.
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Bourgeois contact structures: Tightness, fillability and applications
Abstract Given a contact structure on a manifold V together with a supporting open book decomposition, Bourgeois gave an explicit construction of a contact structure on $$V \times {\mathbb {T}}^2$$ V × T 2 . We prove that all such structures are universally tight in dimension 5, independent of whether the original contact manifold is itself tight or overtwisted. In arbitrary dimensions, we provide obstructions to the existence of strong symplectic fillings of Bourgeois manifolds. This gives a broad class of new examples of weakly but not strongly fillable contact 5-manifolds, as well as the first examples of weakly but not strongly fillable contact structures in all odd dimensions. These obstructions are particular instances of more general obstructions for $${\mathbb {S}}^1$$ S 1 -invariant contact manifolds. We also obtain a classification result in arbitrary dimensions, namely that the unit cotangent bundle of the n -torus has a unique symplectically aspherical strong filling up to diffeomorphism.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1926686
- PAR ID:
- 10351435
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Inventiones mathematicae
- ISSN:
- 0020-9910
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1007/s00222-022-01131-y
