Abstract:
In this joint work with Cagatay Kutluhan, Jeremy Van Horn-Morris and Andy Wand, we define an invariant of contact structures in dimension three arising from introducing a filtration on the boundary operator in Heegaard Floer homology. This invariant takes values in the set of positive integers union infinity. It is zero for overtwisted contact structures, ∞ for Stein fillable contact structures, non-decreasing under Legendrian surgery, and computable from any supporting open book decomposition. I will give the definition and discuss computability of the invariant. As an application, we give an easily computable obstruction to Stein fillability on closed contact 3-manifolds with non-vanishing Ozsváth-Szabó contact class.