Quasi-regular Sasakian and K-contact structures on Smale-Barden manifolds

Abstract: Smale-Barden manifolds are simply-connected closed 5-manifolds. It is an important and difficult question to decide when a Smale-Barden manifold admits a Sasakian or a K-contact structure. The known constructions of Sasakian and K-contact structures are obtained mainly by two techniques. These are either links (Boyer and Galicki), or semi-regular Seifert fibrations over smooth orbifolds (Koll\'ar). Recently, the second named author of this article started the systematic development of quasi-regular Seifert fibrations, that is, over orbifolds which are not necessarily smooth. The present work is devoted to several applications of this theory. First, we develop constructions of a Smale-Barden manifold admitting a quasi-regular Sasakian structure but not a semi-regular K-contact structure. Second, we determine all Smale-Barden manifolds that admit a null Sasakian structure. Finally, we show a counterexample in the realm of cyclic K\"ahler orbifolds to the algebro-geometric conjecture that claims that for an algebraic surface with $b_1=0$ and $b_2>1$ there cannot be $b_2$ smooth disjoint complex curves of genus g>0 spanning the (rational) homology.