Fillable contact structures from positive surgery

We consider the question of when the operation of contact surgery with positive surgery coefficient, along a knot <inline-formula content-type="math/mathml"> <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" alttext="upper K"> <mml:semantics> <mml:mi>K</mml:mi> <mml:annotation encoding="application/x-tex">K</mml:annotation> </mml:semantics> </mml:math> </inline-formula> in a contact 3-manifold <inline-formula content-type="math/mathml"> <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" alttext="upper Y"> <mml:semantics> <mml:mi>Y</mml:mi> <mml:annotation encoding="application/x-tex">Y</mml:annotation> </mml:semantics> </mml:math> </inline-formula>, gives rise to a weakly fillable contact structure. We show that this happens if and only if <inline-formula content-type="math/mathml"> <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" alttext="upper Y"> <mml:semantics> <mml:mi>Y</mml:mi> <mml:annotation encoding="application/x-tex">Y</mml:annotation> </mml:semantics> </mml:math> </inline-formula> itself is weakly fillable, and <inline-formula content-type="math/mathml"> <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" alttext="upper K"> <mml:semantics> <mml:mi>K</mml:mi> <mml:annotation encoding="application/x-tex">K</mml:annotation> </mml:semantics> </mml:math> </inline-formula> is isotopic to the boundary of a properly embedded symplectic disk inside a filling of <inline-formula content-type="math/mathml"> <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" alttext="upper Y"> <mml:semantics> <mml:mi>Y</mml:mi> <mml:annotation encoding="application/x-tex">Y</mml:annotation> </mml:semantics> </mml:math> </inline-formula>. Moreover, if <inline-formula content-type="math/mathml"> <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" alttext="upper Y prime"> <mml:semantics> <mml:msup> <mml:mi>Y</mml:mi> <mml:mo>′</mml:mo> </mml:msup> <mml:annotation encoding="application/x-tex">Y’</mml:annotation> </mml:semantics> </mml:math> </inline-formula> is a contact manifold arising from positive contact surgery along <inline-formula content-type="math/mathml"> <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" alttext="upper K"> <mml:semantics> <mml:mi>K</mml:mi> <mml:annotation encoding="application/x-tex">K</mml:annotation> </mml:semantics> </mml:math> </inline-formula>, then any filling of <inline-formula content-type="math/mathml"> <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" alttext="upper Y prime"> <mml:semantics> <mml:msup> <mml:mi>Y</mml:mi> <mml:mo>′</mml:mo> </mml:msup> <mml:annotation encoding="application/x-tex">Y’</mml:annotation> </mml:semantics> </mml:math> </inline-formula> is symplectomorphic to the complement of a suitable neighborhood of such a disk in a filling of <inline-formula content-type="math/mathml"> <mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" alttext="upper Y"> <mml:semantics> <mml:mi>Y</mml:mi> <mml:annotation encoding="application/x-tex">Y</mml:annotation> </mml:semantics> </mml:math> </inline-formula>. Using this result we deduce several necessary conditions for a knot in the standard 3-sphere to admit a fillable positive surgery, such as quasipositivity and equality between the slice genus and the 4-dimensional clasp number, and we give a characterization of such knots in terms of a quasipositive braid expression. We show that knots arising as the closure of a positive braid always admit a fillable positive surgery, as do knots that have lens space surgeries, and suitable satellites of such knots. In fact the majority of quasipositive knots with up to 10 crossings admit a fillable positive surgery. On the other hand, in general, (strong) quasipositivity, positivity, or Lagrangian fillability need not imply a knot admits a fillable positive contact surgery.