Link Floer Homology and a Hofer Pseudometric on Braids

Abstract

Following an idea of Frédéric le Roux, we define in this paper a family of Hofer-type pseudonorms on braid groups, computing the minimal energy of a Hamiltonian diffeomorphism which fixes a Lagrangian configuration of circles on the unit disc and realises that braid type. We prove that in the case of braids with two strands we have in fact a norm, and we give lower estimates for braids with more strands. The main tool is Link Floer Homology, recently defined by D. Cristofaro-Gardiner, V. Humilière, C.-Y. Mak, S. Seyfaddini and I. Smith, which we use to construct a family of quasimorphisms on the group of compactly supported Hamiltonian diffeomorphisms which is sensitive to the linking number of diffeomorphisms fixing Lagrangian links.

arXiv commentVariation of the constant appearing in the main results, corrected some proofs and typos following the referee's comments. To appear in the Journal of Symplectic Geometry