Homotopy classification of contact foliations on open contact manifolds

We give a homotopy classification of foliations on open contact manifolds whose leaves are contact submanifolds of the ambient space. The result is an extension of Haefliger’s classification of foliations on open manifold in the contact setting. While proving the main theorem, we also prove a result on equidimensional isocontact immersions on open contact manifolds.     

On the Curvature of Metric Contact Pairs

We consider manifolds endowed with metric contact pairs for which the two characteristic foliations are orthogonal. We give some properties of the curvature tensor and in particular a formula for the Ricci curvature in the direction of the sum of the two Reeb vector fields. This shows that metrics associated to normal contact pairs cannot be flat. Therefore flat non-Kähler Vaisman manifolds do not exist. Furthermore we give a local classification of metric contact pair manifolds whose curvature vanishes on the vertical subbundle. As a corollary we have that flat associated metrics can only exist if the leaves of the characteristic foliations are at most three-dimensional.     

Contact-pair neighborhood theorem for submanifolds in symplectic pairs

Let M be a 2n-dimensional smooth manifold associated with the structure of symplectic pair which is a pair of closed 2-forms of constant ranks with complementary kernel foliations. Let Q⊂Mbe a codimension 2 compact submanifold. We show some sufficient and necessary conditions on the existence of the structure of contact pair (α,β) on Q,which is a pair of 1-forms of constant classes whose characteristic foliations are transverse and complementary such that α and β restrict to contact forms on the leaves of the characteristic foliations of βand α,respectively. This is a generalization of the neighborhood theorem for contact-type hypersurfaces in symplectic topology.     

Zygmund strong foliations

We show that for a volume-preserving Anosov flow on a 3-manifold the strong stable and unstable foliations are Zygmund-regular. We also exhibit an obstruction to higher regularity, which admits a direct geometric interpretation. Vanishing of this obstruction implies high smoothness of the joint strong subbundle and that the flow is either a suspension or a contact flow.     

Some tight contact foliations can be approximated by overtwisted ones

A contact foliation is a foliation endowed with a leafwise contact structure. In this remark we explain a turbulisation procedure that allows us to prove that tightness is not a homotopy invariant property for contact foliations.     

On existence of regular jacobi structures

We prove \(h\) -principle for locally conformal symplectic foliations and contact foliations on open manifolds. We then interpret the results in terms of regular Jacobi structures on manifolds.     

Closed minimal surfaces in cusped hyperbolic three-manifolds

We introduce essential open book foliations by refining open book foliations, and develop technical estimates of the fractional Dehn twist coefficient (FDTC) of monodromies and the FDTC for closed braids, which we introduce as well. As applications, we quantitatively study the ‘gap’ between overtwisted contact structures and non-right-veering monodromies. We give sufficient conditions for a 3-manifold to be irreducible and atoroidal. We also show that the geometries of a 3-manifold and the complement of a closed braid are determined by the Nielsen–Thurston types of the monodromies of their open book decompositions.     

VECTOR FIELDS FOR CONTACT PAIRS

Let M be a(2 k + 2 l + 2)-dimensional smooth manifold. For such M, Bande and Hadjar introduce a new geometric structure called contact pair which roughly is a couple of 1-forms of constant classes with complementary kernels and foliations. We show the relationship between a pair of vector fields for a contact pair and a quadruple of functions on M. This is a generalization of the classical result for contact manifolds.     

The Weil–Petersson Kähler Form and Affine Foliations on Surfaces

The space of broken hyperbolic structures generalizes the usual Teichmüller space of a punctured surface, and the space of projectivized broken measured foliations – or, equivalently, the space of projectivized affine foliations of a punctured surface – likewise generalizes the space of projectivized measured foliations. Just as projectivized measured foliations provide Thurston's boundary for Teichmüller space, so too do projectivized broken measured foliations provide a boundary for the space of broken hyperbolic structures. In this paper, we naturally extend the Weil–Petersson Kähler two-form to a corresponding two-form on the space of broken hyperbolic structures as well as Thurston's symplectic form to a corresponding two-form on the space of broken measured foliations, and we show that the former limits in an appropriate sense to the latter. The proof in sketch follows earlier work of the authors for measured foliations and depends upon techniques from decorated Teichmüller theory, which is also applied here to a further study of broken hyperbolic structures.     

Admissible transverse surgery does not preserve tightness

We produce the first examples of closed, tight contact 3-manifolds which become overtwisted after performing admissible transverse surgeries. Along the way, we clarify the relationship between admissible transverse surgery and Legendrian surgery. We use this clarification to study a new invariant of transverse knots—namely, the range of slopes on which admissible transverse surgery preserves tightness—and to provide some new examples of knot types which are not uniformly thick. Our examples also illuminate several interesting new phenomena, including the existence of hyperbolic, universally tight contact 3-manifolds whose Heegaard Floer contact invariants vanish (and which are not weakly fillable); and the existence of open books with arbitrarily high fractional Dehn twist coefficients whose compatible contact structures are not deformations of co-orientable taut foliations.     

Branched spines and contact structures on 3-manifolds

We introduce and analyze the characteristic foliation induced by a contact structure on a branched surface, in particular a branched standard spine of a 3-manifold. We extend to (fairly general) singular foliations of branched surfaces the local existence and uniqueness results which hold for genuine surfaces. Moreover we show that global uniqueness holds when restricting to tight structures. We establish branched versions of the elimination lemma. We prove a smooth version of the Gillman-Rolfsen PL-embedding theorem, deducing that branched spines can be used to construct contact structures in a given homotopy class of plane fields. Entrata in Redazione il 6 novembre 1998.     

A foliated analogue of one- and two-dimensional Arakelov theory

The analogy between number fields and Riemann surfaces was an important source of motivation for mathematicians in the last century. We improve and extend this analogy by substituting Riemann surfaces with certain foliations by Riemann surfaces. In particular we show that coverings of these foliations lead to formulas having the same structure as formulas describing number field extensions. We also study higher dimensional foliations which have properties analogous to arithmetic surfaces. This provides more evidence for a conjecture of Deninger.     

Invariants of contact structures and transversally oriented foliations

We exhibit new invariants of the contact structure E(), the contact flow F and the transverse symplectic geometry of a contact manifold (M, ). The invariant of contact structures generalizes to transversally oriented foliations. We focus on the particular cases of orientations of smooth manifolds and transverse orientations of foliations. We define the transverse Calabi invariants and determine their kernels.Supported in part by NSF grants DMS 90-01861 and DMS 94-03196.     

Properties of the basic cohomology of transversely Kähler foliations

In this paper we study the complex basic cohomology of transversely Hermitian foliations. We use the methods developed in [7] and prove that for transversely Kähler foliations the foliated version of the Frölicher spectral sequence collapses at the first level and that the minimal model for the complex basic cohomology is formal. To stress that these properties are particular to transversely Kähler foliations we construct examples of transversely Hermitian foliations for which these theorems do not hold.     

Contact complete integrability

Complete integrability in a symplectic setting means the existence of a Lagrangian foliation leaf-wise preserved by the dynamics. In the paper we describe complete integrability in a contact set-up as a more subtle structure: a flag of two foliations, Legendrian and co-Legendrian, and a holonomy-invariant transverse measure of the former in the latter. This turns out to be equivalent to the existence of a canonical ? ? ? ^n?1 structure on the leaves of the co-Legendrian foliation. Further, the above structure implies the existence of n commuting contact fields preserving a special contact 1-form, thus providing the geometric framework and establishing equivalence with previously known definitions of contact integrability. We also show that contact completely integrable systems are solvable in quadratures. We present an example of contact complete integrability: the billiard system inside an ellipsoid in pseudo-Euclidean space, restricted to the space of oriented null geodesics. We describe a surprising acceleration mechanism for closed light-like billiard trajectories.     

Local structure of Koszul-Vinberg and of Lie algebroids

In this short note we continue our study of Koszul-Vinberg algebroids which form a subcategory of the category of Lie algebroids, and which appear naturally in the study of affine structures, affine and transversally affine foliations [N. Nguiffo Boyom, R. Wolak, J. Geom. Phys. 42 (2002) 307-317]. We prove a local decomposition theorem for KV-algebroids. Using the notion of KV-algebroids we introduce a new class of singular foliations: affine singular foliations. In the last section we study the holonomy of these foliations and prove a stability theorem.     

Broken hyperbolic structures and affine foliations on surfaces

In this paper, we introduce two new kinds of structures on a non-compact surface: broken hyperbolic structures and broken measured foliations. The space of broken hyperbolic structures contains the Teichmüller space of the surface as a subspace. The space of broken measured foliations is naturally identified with the space of affine foliations of the surface. We describe a topology on the union of the space of broken hyperbolic structures and of the space of broken measured foliations which generalizes Thurston's compactification of Teichmüller space.     

Lagrangians adapted to submersions and foliations

Lagrangians related to submersions and foliations, which are analogous to Riemannian submersions and Riemannian foliations respectively are studied in the paper. One prove that a bundle-like Lagrangian, a transverse hyperregular Lagrangian, a hyperregular Lagrangian foliated cocycle or a geodesic orthogonal property are equivalent data for a foliation. A conjecture of E. Ghys is proved in a more general setting than that of Finslerian foliations: a foliation that has a transverse positively definite Lagrangian is a Riemannian foliation. One extend also a result of Miernowski and Mozgawa on Finslerian foliations, proving that the natural lift to the normal bundle of a Lagrangian foliation that has a transverse positively definite Lagrangian is a Riemannian foliation.     

Total rigidity of polynomial foliations on the complex projective plane

Polynomial foliations of the complex plane are topologically rigid. Roughly speaking, this means that the topological equivalence of two foliations implies their affine equivalence. There exist various nonequivalent formalizations of the notion of topological rigidity. Generic polynomial foliations of fixed degree have the so-called property of absolute rigidity, which is the weakest form of topological rigidity. This property was discovered by the author more than 30 years ago. The genericity conditions imposed at that time were very restrictive. Since then, this topic has been studied by Shcherbakov, Gómez-Mont, Nakai, Lins Neto-Sad-Scárdua, Loray-Rebelo, and others. They relaxed the genericity conditions and increased the dimension. The main conjecture in this field states that a generic polynomial foliation of the complex plane is topologically equivalent to only finitely many foliations. The main result of this paper is weaker than this conjecture but also makes it possible to compare topological types of distant foliations.     

On deformations of transversely homogeneous foliations

A transversely homogeneous foliation is a foliation whose transverse model is a homogeneous space G/H. In this paper we consider the class of transversely homogeneous foliations on a manifold M which can be defined by a family of 1-forms on M fulfilling the Maurer–Cartan equation of the Lie group G. This class includes as particular cases Lie foliations and certain homogeneous spaces foliated by points. We develop, for the foliations belonging to this class, a deformation theory for which both the foliation and the model homogeneous space G/H are allowed to change. As the main result we show that, under some cohomological assumptions, there exist a versal space of deformations of finite dimension for the foliations of the class and when the manifold M is compact. Some concrete examples are discussed.