Some quantitative results in $C^0$ symplectic geometry

Abstract

This paper studies the action of symplectic homeomorphisms on smooth submanifolds, with a main focus on the behaviour of symplectic homeomorphisms with respect to numerical invariants like capacities. Our main result is that a symplectic homeomorphism may preserve and squeeze codimension $4$ symplectic submanifolds ($C^0$-flexibility), while this is impossible for codimension $2$ symplectic submanifolds ($C^0$-rigidity). We also discuss $C^0$-invariants of coistropic and Lagrangian submanifolds, proving some rigidity results and formulating some conjectures. We finally formulate an Eliashberg-Gromov $C^0$-rigidity type question for submanifolds, which we solve in many cases. Our main technical tool is a quantitative $h$-principle result in symplectic geometry.