Geometry of foliations and flows I: Almost transverse Pseudo-Anosov flows and asymptotic behavior of foliations (Q1000223): Difference between revisions

The impressive paper under review contributes to understanding the geometry of a 2-dimensional foliation \({\mathcal F}\) in a closed 3-dimensional manifold under the hypothesis that \({\mathcal F}\) is almost transverse to a quasigeodesic pseudo-Anosov flow. Since the contents of the paper are excellently described in its abstract, we are partly quoting it here: ``We show that the leaves of the foliation in the universal cover extend continuously to the sphere at infinity; therefore the limit sets of the leaves are continuous images of the circle. One important corollary is that if \({\mathcal F}\) is a Reebless, finite depth foliation in a hyperbolic 3-manifold, then it has the continuous extension property. Such finite depth foliations exist whenever the second Betti number is non zero. The result also applies to other classes of foliations, including a large class of foliations where all leaves are dense, and infinitely many examples with one sided branching. One extremely useful tool is a detailed understanding of the topological structure and asymptotic properties of the 1-dimensional foliations in the leaves of \(\widetilde{\mathcal F}\) induced by the stable and unstable foliations of the flow.''