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Nearby Lagrangian conjecture in cotangent bundles

Determine whether every compact exact Lagrangian submanifold L in the cotangent bundle T*N of a smooth manifold N is Hamiltonian isotopic to the zero section; equivalently, resolve Arnold’s nearby Lagrangian conjecture for compact exact Lagrangians in T*N.

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Background

Within the discussion of cotangent bundles, the author recalls Arnold’s nearby Lagrangian conjecture, a central open problem in symplectic topology. Despite strong constraints proved via Fukaya-category techniques (e.g., Nadler–Zaslow and Abouzaid–Kragh), the classification up to Hamiltonian isotopy remains open in general.

References

Arnold's {\bf nearby Lagrangian conjecture}, which asks whether every compact exact Lagrangian submanifold in $T*N$ is Hamiltonian isotopic to the zero section. (By the Weinstein neighborhood theorem, a tubular neighborhood of a Lagrangian submanifold $N\subset M$ is symplectomorphic to a neighborhood of the zero section in $T*N$, so Arnold's conjecture indeed constrains nearby Lagrangians.) Arnold's question remains open in general (though it has been answered positively in a few cases), essentially because, even though Hamiltonian isotopic exact Lagrangian submanifolds are Fukaya isomorphic, it is not clear that the converse should hold.

Lagrangian Floer theory, from geometry to algebra and back again (2510.22476 - Auroux, 26 Oct 2025) in Subsection “Cotangent bundles and the nearby Lagrangian conjecture,” Section 2.3