The fully marked surface theorem

DOI10.4310/ACTA.2020.V225.N2.A4MaRDI QIDQ2663758zbMATH OpenOpenAlexFDO

Authors David Gabai, Mehdi Yazdi

Publication date 19 April 2021

Published in Acta Mathematica (Search for Journal in Brave)

Full work available at URL https://arxiv.org/abs/2008.07223

zbMATH Keywords

cohomology classEuler characteristichomology classtaut foliation

Mathematics Subject Classification ID

General topology of 3-manifolds (57K30) Hyperbolic 3-manifolds (57K32) Foliations in differential topology; geometric theory (57R30)

Abstract: In his seminal 1976 paper Bill Thurston observed that a closed leaf S of a foliation has Euler characteristic equal, up to sign, to the Euler class of the foliation evaluated on [S], the homology class represented by S. The main result of this paper is a converse for taut foliations: if the Euler class of a taut foliation $mathcalF$ evaluated on [S] equals up to sign the Euler characteristic of S and the underlying manifold is hyperbolic, then there exists another taut foliation $mathcal{F}^{\prime }$ such that $S$ is homologous to a union of leaves and such that the plane field of $mathcal{F}^{\prime }$ is homotopic to that of $mathcalF$. In particular, $mathcalF$ and $mathcal{F}^{\prime }$ have the same Euler class. In the same paper Thurston proved that taut foliations on closed hyperbolic 3-manifolds have Euler class of norm at most one, and conjectured that, conversely, any integral cohomology class with norm equal to one is the Euler class of a taut foliation. This is the second of two papers that together give a negative answer to Thurston's conjecture. In the first paper, counterexamples were constructed assuming the main result of this paper.

Review text

In an influential paper published in 1976 (revised version published in 1986, [\textit{W. P. Thurston}, Mem. Am. Math. Soc. 339, 99--130 (1986; Zbl 0585.57006)]), William Thurston observed that a closed leaf \(S\) of a codimension-one foliation on a compact 3-manifold has Euler characteristic equal (up to sign) to the Euler class of the foliation evaluated on \([S]\), the homology class represented by \(S\). The main result of this paper is a converse of this result for taut foliations. The authors prove that if the Euler class of a taut foliation \(\mathcal{F}\) evaluated on \([S]\) equals (up to sign) the Euler characteristic of \(S\) and the underlying manifold is hyperbolic, then there exists another taut foliation \(\mathcal{F}^\prime\) such that \(S\) is homologous to a union of leaves and such that the plane field of \(\mathcal{F}^\prime\) is homotopic to that of \(\mathcal{F}\). In particular, \(\mathcal{F}\) and \(\mathcal{F}^\prime\) have the same Euler class. In the same paper cited above, Thurston proved that taut foliations on closed hyperbolic 3-manifolds have Euler class of norm at most one, and conjectured that, conversely, any integral cohomology class with norm equal to one is the Euler class of a taut foliation. In this paper, the authors give a negative answer to Thurston's conjecture.

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Cited in

(6)

• Combinatorial volume preserving flows and taut foliations
• Veering triangulations and the Thurston norm: homology to isotopy
• On Thurston's inequality for spinnable foliations
• Reeb components and Thurston's inequality
• Thurston norm and Euler classes of tight contact structures
• Euler class of taut foliations and Dehn filling

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