4/27/2006

Andras Stipsicz
Renyi Institute of Mathematics

Contact structures, Giroux torsion  and contact invariants

Contact structures with positive Giroux torsion are expected to behave quite differently than the ones with vanishing torsion. For example it is conjectured that the positivity of the Giroux torsion of a contact structure is an obstruction for fillability. We give some evidence for this conjecture through verifying a vanishing result for the contact Ozsvath-Szabo invariants of contact structures with large enough torsion on certain 3-manifolds.