An infinite family of tight, not semi-fillable contact three-manifolds

Abstract

We prove that an infinite family of virtually overtwisted tight contact structures discovered by Honda on certain circle bundles over surfaces admit no symplectic semi–fillings. The argument uses results of Mrowka, Ozsváth and Yu on the translation–invariant solutions to the Seiberg–Witten equations on cylinders and the non–triviality of the Kronheimer–Mrowka monopole invariants of symplectic fillings.