Coisotropic rigidity and C^0-symplectic geometry

Abstract

We prove that symplectic homeomorphisms, in the sense of the celebrated Gromov-Eliashberg Theorem, preserve coisotropic submanifolds and their characteristic foliations. This result generalizes the Gromov-Eliashberg Theorem and demonstrates that previous rigidity results (on Lagrangians by Laudenbach-Sikorav, and on characteristics of hypersurfaces by Opshtein) are manifestations of a single rigidity phenomenon. To prove the above, we establish a C^0-dynamical property of coisotropic submanifolds which generalizes a foundational theorem in C^0-Hamiltonian dynamics: Uniqueness of generators for continuous analogs of Hamiltonian flows.