Orderability -- rigidity in contact geometry 

Peter Albers (Muenster)

Abstract: In 2000 Eliashberg-Polterovich introduced the notion of orderability of 
(the universal cover of) the group of contactomorphism of a contact manifold. 
In 2006 in joint work with Kim they linked this to very subtle rigidity properties 
of contact manifolds reminiscent of Gromov's famous non-squeezing theorem. 
Orderability is equivalent to the absence of (contractible) positive loops of 
contactomorphisms.

In my talk I will explain the relevant notions and present new results concerning 
(non-)existence of positive loops with Floer theoretic methods. Moreover, 
we establish a link between orderability and the famous Weinstein conjecture.