Taut foliations and the action of the fundamental group on leaf spaces and universal circles (Q2510047)

Throughout this paper, \(M\) is a connected closed oriented \(3\)-manifold and \(\mathcal F\) is a codimension-one transversely oriented, leafwise hyperbolic, taut foliation on \(M\). Here, ``leafwise hyperbolic'' means the existence of a continuous leafwise Riemannian metric on \(M\) whose restriction to each leaf is locally isometric to the hyperbolic plane, and ``taut'' means the existence of a loop in \(M\) intersecting every leaf transversely. Let \(\widetilde{\mathcal F}\) be the lift of \(\mathcal F\) to the universal cover \(\widetilde M\) of \(M\). It is known that the leaf space \(L\) of \(\widetilde{\mathcal F}\) is a \(1\)-manifold, and the action of \(\pi_1(M)\) on \(\widetilde M\) induces a natural action of \(\pi_1(M)\) on \(L\). It is said that \(\mathcal F\) has branching if \(L\) is not Hausdorff. The first main theorem of the paper states that, if \(\mathcal F\) has branching, then the natural action of \(\pi_1(M)\) on \(L\) is faithful. A subset \(B\subset L\) is called a branch locus when it has more than one point and is a limit set of one of the two ends of an open interval embedded in \(L\). The stabilizer \(\text{Stab}(B)\) consists of the elements of \(\pi_1(L)\) that preserve \(B\). Another theorem of the paper states that, for any branch locus \(B\), if an element of \(\text{Stab}(B)\) fixes some point of \(B\), then it fixes all points of \(\text{Stab}(B)\). For any leaf \(\lambda\) of \(\widetilde{\mathcal F}\), let \(\underline{\lambda}\) denote the corresponding projected leaf of \(\mathcal F\). The next theorem of the paper states that, for all leaf \(\lambda\) of \(\widetilde{\mathcal F}\) belonging to some given branch locus \(B\), then: (1) if \(\text{Stab}(B)=\{1\}\), \(\underline{\lambda}\) is diffeomorphic to a plane, and, (2) if \(\text{Stab}(B)\neq\{1\}\), \(\underline{\lambda}\) is diffeomorphic to a cylinder. It is also shown the \(\text{Stab}(B)\cong\mathbb Z\) for any finite branch locus \(B\) with \(\text{Stab}(B)\neq\{1\}\), and moreover a generator \(\alpha\) of \(\text{Stab}(B)\) satisfies \(\alpha\neq\beta^k\) with \(k\geq2\). The final sections relates the existence of infinite branch loci and nontransversable leaf loops. For instance, it is proved that, if \(\mathcal F\) has branching and there is a non contractible leaf loop in \(M\), which is not freely homotopic to a transverse loop, then \(\mathcal F\) has an infinite branch locus.