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Abstract We define a new family of spectral invariants associated to certain Lagrangian links in compact and connected surfaces of any genus. We show that our invariants recover the Calabi invariant of Hamiltonians in their limit. As applications, we resolve several open questions from topological surface dynamics and continuous symplectic topology: We show that the group of Hamiltonian homeomorphisms of any compact surface with (possibly empty) boundary is not simple; we extend the Calabi homomorphism to the group of hameomorphisms constructed by Oh and Müller, and we construct an infinite-dimensional family of quasi-morphisms on the group of area and orientation preserving homeomorphisms of the two-sphere. Our invariants are inspired by recent work of Polterovich and Shelukhin defining and applying spectral invariants, via orbifold Floer homology, for links composed of parallel circles in the two-sphere. A particular feature of our work is that it avoids the orbifold setting and relies instead on ‘classical’ Floer homology. This not only substantially simplifies the technical background but seems essential for some aspects (such as the application to constructing quasi-morphisms). 

It is known that every contact form on a closed three-manifold has at least two simple Reeb orbits, and a generic contact form has infinitely many. We show that if there are exactly two simple Reeb orbits, then the contact form is nondegenerate. Combined with a previous result, this implies that the three-manifold is diffeomorphic to the three-sphere or a lens space, and the two simple Reeb orbits are the core circles of a genus-one Heegaard splitting. We also obtain further information about the Reeb dynamics and the contact structure. For example, the Reeb flow has a disk-like global surface of section and so its dynamics are described by a pseudorotation, the contact structure is universally tight, and in the case of the three-sphere the contact volume and the periods and rotation numbers of the simple Reeb orbits satisfy the same relations as for an irrational ellipsoid.