We prove that for @math there exists a compact subset @math of the closed ball in @math of radius @math , such that @math has Hausdorff dimension @math and does not symplectically embed into the standard open symplectic cylinder. The second main result is a lower bound on the @math -th regular coisotropic capacity, which is sharp up to a factor of 3. For an open subset of a geometrically bounded, aspherical symplectic manifold, this capacity is a lower bound on its displacement energy. The proofs of the results involve a certain Lagrangian submanifold of linear space, which was considered by M. Audin and L. Polterovich.
We study holomorphic spheres in certain symplectic cobordisms and derive information about periodic Reeb orbits in the concave end of these cobordisms from the non-compactness of the relevant moduli spaces. We use this to confirm the strong Weinstein conjecture (predicting the existence of null-homologous Reeb links) for various higher-dimensional contact manifolds, including contact type hypersurfaces in subcritical Stein manifolds and in some cotangent bundles. The quantitative character of this result leads to the definition of a symplectic capacity. We apply the method of filling with holomorphic discs to a 4-dimensional sym- plectic cobordism with the standard contact 3-sphere as one convex boundary component. We establish the following dichotomy: either the cobordism is diffeomorphic to a ball, or there is a periodic Reeb orbit of quantifiably short period in the concave boundary of the cobordism. This allows us to give a unified treatment of various results concerning Reeb dy- namics on contact 3-manifolds, symplectic fillability, the topology of symplectic cobordisms, symplectic nonsqueezing, and the nonexistence of exact Lagrangian surfaces in standard symplectic 4-space.