Yang Huang: Bypass -- a building block of contact Morse theory

The theory of Weinstein manifolds can be regarded as a kind of symplectic Morse theory, and it has played a prominent role in symplectic topology. In this talk, I will explain an attempt to build a "parallel" theory in contact topology. More precisely I will describe the so-called bypass attachment, or in other words, a contact Morse function with (canceling) critical points in the middle dimensions. This work is joint with Ko Honda.