A rigidity result for coisotropic submanifolds in contact geometry

Abstract

We study coisotropic deformations of a compact regular coisotropic submanifold $C$ in a contact manifold $(M,\xi)$. Our main result states that $C$ is rigid among nearby coisotropic submanifolds whose characteristic foliation is diffeomorphic to that of $C$. When combined with a classical rigidity result for foliations, this yields conditions under which $C$ is rigid among all nearby coisotropic submanifolds.