We show that the Gerstenhaber algebra of the 1-jet Lie algebroid of a Jacobi manifold has a canonical exact generator, and discuss duality between its homology and the Lie algebroid cohomology. We also give new examples of Lie bialgebroids over Poisson manifolds.
We define an integer-valued non-degenerate bi-invariant metric (the discriminant metric) on the universal cover of the identity component of the contactomorphism group of any contact manifold. This metric has a very simple geometric definition, based on the notion of discriminant points of contactomorphisms. Using generating functions we prove that the discriminant metric is unbounded for the standard contact structures on and . On the other hand we also show by elementary arguments that the...