Contact open books with flexible pages

. We give an elementary topological obstruction for a manifold M of dimension 2 q +1 ≥ 7 to admit a contact open book with flexible Weinstein pages and c 1 ( π 2 ( M )) = 0: if the torsion subgroup of the q -th integral homology group is non-zero, then no such contact open book exists. We achieve this by proving that a symplectomorphism of a flexible Weinstein manifold acts trivially on integral cohomology. We also produce examples of non-trivial loops of flexible contact structures using related ideas.

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