Topology and complex structures of leaves of foliations by Riemann surfaces (Q2187688)

The authors study Brody hyperbolic holomorphic foliations on compact complex surfaces and address the problem of finding conditions for a generic leaf to be a holomorphic disk. This is motivated by Anosov's conjecture: for a generic holomorphic foliation on \(\mathbb{P}^2\), all but countable many leaves are disks. The main result is the following. Theorem 1.1. Let \((X,\mathcal{L}, E)\) be a Brody hyperbolic holomorphic foliation on a compact complex manifold of dimension \(2\), where the singular set \(E\) is finite. Assume that there is no compact weakly directed by \(\mathcal{L}^1\), and that all singularities are hyperbolic. Suppose that there exists a sequence \(\lbrace z_j\rbrace\subset X\setminus E\) of points such that \(\rho(z_j)\rightarrow 1\) and \(z_j\rightarrow z\in X\setminus E\). Then there is a non-trivial minimal closed saturated set \(Y\subset X\) such that all but countably many leaves in \(Y\) are disks. Here \(\rho(z) := k(z,v)/ k_i(z,v)\), where \(k\) denotes the leafwise Kobayashi metric and \(k_i\) the injective Kobayashi metric. In particular a generic holomorphic foliation on \(\mathbb{P}^2\) satisfies the assumptions of Theorem 1.1. As a consequence of Theorem 1.1, either all leaves are far from resembling the disk or all but countably many leaves are disks (Theorem 1.2). The authors also provide various examples of foliations with leaves having different topological type.