Taut foliations (Q2321851)

The notion of (smooth) tautness for smooth foliations was introduced by \textit{D. Sullivan} [Invent. Math. 36, 225--255 (1976; Zbl 0335.57015); Comment. Math. Helv. 54, 218--223 (1979; Zbl 0409.57025)]. Namely, D. Sullivan introduced several different definitions of tautness for smooth foliations and proved the equivalence of these definitions for \(C^2\) foliations. Although it has not always been made clear in the literature, the different notions of tautness introduced by Sullivan admit two distinct interpretations and they are not all equivalent without sufficient smoothness of the considered foliations. In this paper, the authors introduce and study notions of tautness for foliations which are generalized from the Sullivan ones. First, the authors introduce \textit{topological tautness} for \(C^0\) foliations, i.e. the \(C^0\) foliations \(\mathcal{F}\) on a closed 3-manifold such that for every leaf \(L\) of \(\mathcal{F}\), there is a simple closed topological transversal to \(\mathcal{F}\) that has nonempty intersection with \(L\) (see Definition 2.6 in Section 2). The notion of \textit{smooth tautness} is completely defined similarly to topological tautness but instead of \(C^0\) foliations on a closed 3-manifold by \(C^{1,0}\) foliations on an arbitrary closed differential manifold (see Definition 2.7 in Section 2). In addition, the authors also define \textit{everywhere tautness} (or simply, \textit{taut}) for \(C^{1,0}\) foliations, i.e. \(C^{1,0}\) foliations \(\mathcal{F}\) on an arbitrary closed differential manifold \(M\) such that for every point \(p\), there is a simple closed transversal to \(\mathcal{F}\) containing \(p\) (see Definition 2.8 in Section 2). Note that topologically taut \(C^{1,0}\) foliations are isotopic to everywhere taut \(C^{1,0}\) foliations (see Corollary 5.6 in Section 5), but the implications of the differences between the versions of tautness are clearest in geometry and contact topology (see Section 4). The main result of the paper is the approximation of taut foliations by contact structures (see Theorem 7.4, Section 7). Namely, Theorem 7.4 shows that there exist \(C^{1,0}\) smoothly taut, transversely oriented foliations which can be \(C^0\) approximated by weakly symplectically fillable, universally tight contact structures as well as by overtwisted contact structures. Note that this result contrasts sharply with the one of \textit{J. Bowden} [Geom. Funct. Anal. 26, No. 5, 1255--1296 (2016; Zbl 1362.57037)] and the ones of \textit{W. H. Kazez} and \textit{R. Roberts} [Geom. Topol. Monogr. 19, 21--72 (2015; Zbl 1333.57030); Geom. Topol. 21, No. 6, 3601--3657 (2017; Zbl 1381.57014)] (see Theorem 7.1 and Theorem 7.2, Section 7).