Contact open books with flexible pages

Abstract

AbstractWe give an elementary topological obstruction for a manifold of dimension to admit a contact open book with flexible Weinstein pages and : if the torsion subgroup of the ‐th integral homology group is non‐zero, then no such contact open book exists. We achieve this by proving that a symplectomorphism of a flexible Weinstein manifold acts trivially on integral cohomology. We also produce examples of non‐trivial loops of flexible contact structures using related ideas.