Topology Seminar

In this joint work with Cagatay Kutluhan, Jeremy Van Horn-Morris and Andy Wand, we define an invariant of contact structures in dimension three arising from introducing a filtration on the boundary operator in Heegaard Floer homology. This invariant takes values in the set $\Z_{\geq0}\cup\{\infty\}$. It is zero for overtwisted contact structures, $\infty$ for Stein fillable contact structures, and non-decreasing under Legendrian surgery. I will give the definition and discuss computability of the invariant. As an application, we give an easily computable obstruction to Stein fillability on closed contact 3-manifolds with non-vanishing Ozsvath--Szabo contact class. Speaker(s): Gordana Matic (University of Georgia)