The Weinstein conjecture for iterated planar contact structures

Abstract

In this paper, we introduce the notions of an iterated planar Lefschetz fibration and an iterated planar open book decomposition and prove the Weinstein conjecture for contact manifolds supporting an open book that has iterated planar pages. For $n\ge 1$, we show that a $(2n+1)$-dimensional contact manifold $M$ supporting an iterated planar open book decomposition satisfies the Weinstein conjecture.

43 pages, 14 figures