12/7/2006

Will Kazez
University of Georgia

On the contact class in Heegaard Floer homology

In joint work with Ko Honda and Gordana Matic, we present an alternate description of the Ozsv\'ath-Szab\'o contact class in Heegaard Floer homology.  Using this description, we prove that if a contact structure $(M,\xi)$ has an adapted open book decomposition whose page $S$ is a once-punctured torus, then the monodromy is right-veering if and only if the contact structure is tight.