On the coarse classification of tight contact structures

We present a sketch of the proof of the following theorems: (1) Every 3-manifold has only finitely many homotopy classes of 2-plane fields which carry tight contact structures. (2) Every closed atoroidal 3-manifold carries finitely many isotopy classes of tight contact structures.Comment: 12 pages, to appear in the 2001 Georgia International Topology Conference proceeding

Structures de contact en dimension trois et bifurcations des feuilletages de surfaces

The main purpose of this article is to classify contact structures on some 3-manifolds, namely lens spaces, most torus bundles over a circle, the solid torus, and the thickened torus T^2 x [0,1]. This classification completes earlier work (by Etnyre [math.DG/9812065], Eliashberg, Kanda, Makar-Limanov, and the author) and results from the combination of two techniques: surgery, which produces many contact structures, and tomography, which allows one to analyse a contact structure given a priori and to create from it a combinatorial image. The surgery methods are based on a theorem of Y. Eliashberg -- revisited by R. Gompf [math.GT/9803019] -- and produces holomorphically fillable contact structures on closed manifolds. Tomography theory, developed in parts 2 and 3, draws on notions introduced by the author and yields a small number of possible models for contact structures on each of the manifolds listed above.Comment: Abstract added in migratio

Sur les transformations de contact au-dessus des surfaces

Let S be a compact surface - or the interior of a compact surface - and let V be the manifold of cooriented contact elements of S equiped with its canonical contact structure. A diffeomorphism of V that preserves the contact structure and its coorientation is called a contact transformation over S. We prove the following results. 1) If S is neither a sphere nor a torus then the inclusion of the diffeomorphism group of S into the contact transformation group is 0-connected. 2) If S is a sphere then the contact transformation group is connected. 3) if S is a torus then the homomorphism from the contact transformation group of S to the automorphism group of $H_1(V) \simeq Z^3$ has connected fibers and the image is (known to be) the stabilizer of $Z^2 \times \{0\}$).Comment: 15 pages, LaTe

Remarks on Donaldson's symplectic submanifolds

This paper presents a few remarks about the topology of symplectic hyperplane sections and the geometry of their complements. In particular, it contains a detailed proof of the following result already stated with hints in [Gi]: for sufficiently large degrees, the complements of Donaldson's symplectic hyperplane sections are naturally Weinstein --- and less naturally Stein --- manifolds.Comment: 20 page

On the stable equivalence of open books in three-manifolds

14 pages, LaTeXWe show that two open books in a given closed, oriented three-manifold admit isotopic stabilizations, where the stabilization is made by successive plumbings with Hopf bands, if and only if their associated plane fields are homologous. Since this condition is automatically fulfilled in an integral homology sphere, the theorem implies a conjecture of J.~Harer, namely, that any fibered link in the three-sphere can be obtained from the unknot by a sequence of plumbings and deplumbings of Hopf bands. The proof presented here involves contact geometry in an essential way

Finitude homotopique et isotopique des structures de contact tendues

Let V be a closed 3-manifold. In this paper we prove that the homotopy classes of plane fields on V that contain tight contact structures are in finite number and that, if V is atoroidal, the isotopy classes of tight contact structures are also in finite number