Abstract
We prove that, like the Seiberg–Witten monopole homology, the Heegaard Floer homology for a three-manifold determines its Thurston norm. As a consequence, we show that knot Floer homology detects the genus of a knot. This leads to new proofs of certain results previously obtained using Seiberg–Witten monopole Floer homology (in collaboration with Kronheimer and Mrowka). It also leads to a purely Morse-theoretic interpretation of the genus of a knot. The method of proof shows that the canonical element of Heegaard Floer homology associated to a weakly symplectically fillable contact structure is non-trivial. In particular, for certain three-manifolds, Heegaard Floer homology gives obstructions to the existence of taut foliations.
Citation
Peter Ozsvath. Zoltan Szabo. "Holomorphic disks and genus bounds." Geom. Topol. 8 (1) 311 - 334, 2004. https://doi.org/10.2140/gt.2004.8.311
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