Talk:Symplectic filling

Generalizations
Hi Orthografer, thanks for drawing my attention to your article. I was wondering why you decided to call it "filling". In my limited experience, and from the list of fillings you give in the article, it seems that everything is either in the complex category (Stein) or in the symplectic/almost-complex one (Weinstein, strong/weakly symplectically fillable etc.) So perhaps something less general might be more interesting? I'd love to hear your thoughts on the matter. Best, SammyBoy 03:28, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

I feel like there should be other kinds of fillings having to do with other structures on manifolds. If there really aren't any besides the ones with contact boundary then I guess I'll change the name to symplectic filling. Orthografer 13:29, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

weak filling and dominating filling
Though the definition for the different fillings of a contact manifold vary between authors I think the condition for beeing a weak filling should be slightly different. As far as I know the condition you impose on a weak filling is usually denoted by saying that the filling dominates the contact structure. The condition on a weak filling yousually is given by $$\omega^{n-1}|_\xi>0$$ if the filling has dimension $$2n$$. For $$n=2$$ this is the same condition as before, whereas for $$n>2$$ the condition that the filling dominates the contact structure is equivalent to beeing a strong filling. In this formulation the condition to be a weak filling is equivalent to the existence of a vector field $$Y$$ transverse to the boundary $$M$$ of the filling which induces the contact structure, i.e. $$i_Y\omega|_{TM}$$ is a contact form for the contact structure on the boundary. Whether $$Y$$ points inwards or outwards depends on whether the filling is a convex filling of a concave filling. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Doenermaster (talk • contribs) 00:12, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

concave and convex fillings
One should mention that there are two directions for fillings of contact manifolds; convex filling, which are symplectic cobordisms from $$\emptyset$$ to $$M$$, and concave fillings (also called caps), which are symplectic cobordisms $$\bar{M}$$ to $$\emptyset$$. Here $$\bar{M}$$ is $$M$$ with the reversed (contact) orientation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Doenermaster (talk • contribs) 00:19, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Cobordism?
Why refer to cobordism? By definition, a filling of (smooth, boundaryless, possibly non-compact?) M seems to be another smooth manifold N such that $$\partial N=M$$, while a cobordism between two compact manifolds M1 and M2 is a third compact manifold N with $$\partial N= M_1 \sqcup M_2$$. These conventions make these two articles incompatible, and I don't see what is the benefit of defining a filling as a cobordism which is not quite a cobordism.

Another question is that are only compact manifolds really considered as a subject of filling manifolds? I can see at least one important yet perhaps quite trivial family of non-compact examples, namely the cotangent bundles of non-compact manifolds M with strongly convex Hamiltonian fúnctions h:T*M&rarr;R, where the canonical 1-form &theta; is a contact form on
 * $$ \{ h=c \} := \{ (x,p)\in T^*M \ | \ h(x,p)=c \}$$

and
 * $$ \{ h \leq c \} := \{ (x,p)\in T^*M \ | \ h(x,p)\leq c \}$$

is its symplectic filling with d&theta;. Lapasotka (talk) 13:25, 20 March 2011 (UTC)