Families of Legendrian Submanifolds via Generating Families

Abstract

We investigate families of Legendrian submanifolds of 1-jet spaces by developing and applying a theory of families of generating family homologies. This theory allows us to detect an infinite family of loops of Legendrian n-spheres embedded in the standard contact (2n+1)-space (for n>1) that are contractible in the smooth, but not Legendrian, categories.