A CONTACT INVARIANT IN SUTURED MONOPOLE HOMOLOGY

We define an invariant of contact 3-manifolds with convex boundary using Kronheimer and Mrowka’s sutured monopole Floer homology theory ($SHM$). Our invariant can be viewed as a generalization of Kronheimer and Mrowka’s contact invariant for closed contact 3-manifolds and as the monopole Floer analogue of Honda, Kazez, and Matić’s contact invariant in sutured Heegaard Floer homology ($SFH$). In the process of defining our invariant, we construct maps on $SHM$ associated to contact handle attachments, analogous to those defined by Honda, Kazez, and Matić in $SFH$. We use these maps to establish a bypass exact triangle in $SHM$ analogous to Honda’s in $SFH$. This paper also provides the topological basis for the construction of similar gluing maps in sutured instanton Floer homology, which are used in Baldwin and Sivek [Selecta Math. (N.S.), 22(2) (2016), 939–978] to define a contact invariant in the instanton Floer setting.