Contact Structures with Distinct Heegaard Floer Invariants

We use the Heegaard Floer theory developed by P. Ozsváth and Z. Szabó to give a new proof of a theorem of P. Lisca and G. Mati\'c. In particular, we prove that the contact structures on $Y=\d X$ induced by non-homotopic Stein structures on the 4-manifold $X$ have distinct Heegaard Floer invariants. Our examples also show that Heegaard Floer homology can distinguish between non-isotopic tight contact structures.

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Published 1 January 2004