A spectral-like decomposition for transitive Anosov flows in dimension three (Q269889)

The paper addresses the problem of finding a canonical plug decomposition of an Anosov vector field on a closed \(3\)-manifold. This is a counterpoint to the construction of Anosov vector fields by using a hyperbolic plug. The main result of the paper is the existence of a fine plug decomposition of an Anosov vector field \(X\) on a closed connected \(3\)-manifold \(M\) if the Anosov vector field is not topologically equivalent to a suspension of an Anosov diffeomorphism. This plug decomposition is obtained through the core of \(X\), which is the removal from \(M\) of the union of those embedded tori or Klein bottles that are transverse to \(X\). This core is shown to decompose in a unique way into a finite union of pairwise disjoint basic sets, to which corresponds the desired plug decomposition. The question is raised and addressed by the uniqueness of the fine plug decomposition. Four notions of equivalence -- residual, piecewise topological, globally topological, and flow isotopic (where any later one implies a former one) -- are discussed. It is a fact that two fine plug decompositions are always residually equivalent. The authors prove that an Anosov vector field on a closed orientable \(3\)-manifold admits at most finitely many fine plug decompositions up to piecewise topological equivalence. This result is also true in the non-orientable case, but the authors chose to focus on the orientable case. The paper provides the existence of an Anosov vector field on a closed orientable \(3\)-manifold that admits infinitely many fine plug decompositions which are pairwise not flow isotopic. The authors state that they do not know if there exist Anosov vector fields that admit infinitely many plug decompositions that are pairwise not globally topologically equivalent.