Satellite operations and Legendrian knot theory

John Etnyre (Georgia Tech)

Abstract: Satellite operations are a common way to create interesting knot types in the smooth category. It starts with a knot K, called the companion knot, in some manifold M and another knot P, called the pattern, in S^1\times D^2 and then creates a third knot P(K), called the satellite knot, as the image of P when S^1\times D^2 is identified with a neighborhood of K. In this talk we will discuss the relation between Legendrian knots representing K, P, and P(K). Sometimes the classification of Legendrian representatives for K and P yields a classification for P(K), but other times it does not. We will discuss why this happens and a general framework for studying Legendrian Satellites.