On the Euler characteristic of measured foliations (Q2497903)

Let \((M,\mathcal{F},\mu)\) be a measured foliation. The author considers some objects on \(M\) which are of class \(C^r\) along leaves of \(\mathcal{F}\) and are measurable in the transverse direction. Such objects are said to be of class \(MC^r\). The author denotes by \(\chi(M,\mathcal{F},\mu)\) the Euler characteristic of a measured foliation introduced by \textit{A. Connes} in [Operator algebras and applications, Proc. Symp. Pure Math. 38, Part 1, Kingston/Ont. 1980, 521--628 (1982; Zbl 0531.57023)]. The following theorems are proved in the present paper: A. Let \(X\) be a vector field tangent to \(\mathcal{F}\) of class \(MC^0\) and \(\Omega_{X}\) be the set of zeros of \(X\). If the intersection of \(\Omega_{X}\) with \(\mu\)-almost all leaves is discrete in these leaves then the local index \(\text{ind} _{X}(x)\) is defined for \(\mu\)-almost all \(x\in\Omega_{X}\). If the measurable function \(\text{ind}_{X}\) belongs to \(L^1(\Omega_{X},\mu)\) then \[ \chi(M,\mathcal{F},\mu)=\int_{\Omega _{X}} \text{ind}_{X}(x) d\mu(x). \] B. Let \((M,\mathcal{F},\mu)\) be a measured ergodic foliation. Then the following conditions are equivalent: (1) \(\chi(M,\mathcal{F},\mu) =0\). (2) For each \(\varepsilon >0\) there exists a tangent vector field \(X(\varepsilon)\) of class \(MC^{\infty}\) and with non-degenerate singularities in \((M,\mathcal{F})\) such that \(\mu(\Omega_{X}(\varepsilon)) <\varepsilon\). C. Let \((M,\mathcal{F},\mu)\) be a measured ergodic amenable foliation. Then the following conditions are equivalent: (1) \(\chi(M,\mathcal{F},\mu) =0\). (2) The foliation admits a tangent vector field of class \(MC^{\infty}\) without zeros. In the next theorem, the author gives a lot of conditions which are equivalent to the vanishing of the Euler characteristic in the particular case of a 2-dimensional foliation.