Planarity in higher-dimensional contact manifolds

Abstract

We obtain several results for (iterated) planar contact manifolds in higher dimensions: (1) Iterated planar contact manifolds are not weakly symplectically semi-fillable. This generalizes a 3-dimensional result of Etnyre to a higher-dimensional setting. (2) They do not arise as nonseparating weak contact-type hypersurfaces in closed symplectic manifolds. This generalizes a result by Albers-Bramham-Wendl. (3) They satisfy the Weinstein conjecture, i.e. every contact form admits a closed Reeb orbit. This is proved by an alternative approach as that of [Acu], and is a higher-dimensional generalization of a result of Abbas-Cieliebak-Hofer. The results follow as applications from a suitable symplectic handle attachment, which bears some independent interest.

34 pages, 4 figures; v2 implements changes suggested by the referees; to appear in International Mathematics Research Notices