Related papers: Approximating $C^0$-foliations by contact structur…
Suppose that $\mathcal F$ is a transversely oriented, codimension one foliation of a connected, closed, oriented 3-manifold. Suppose also that $\mathcal F$ has continuous tangent plane field and is {\sl taut}; that is, closed smooth…
We extend the Eliashberg-Thurston theorem on approximations of taut oriented $C^2$-foliations of 3-manifolds by both positive and negative contact structures to a large class of taut oriented $C^{1,0}$-foliations, where by $C^{1,0}$…
According to a theorem of Eliashberg and Thurston a $C^2$-foliation on a closed 3-manifold can be $C^0$-approximated by contact structures unless all leaves of the foliation are spheres. Examples on the 3-torus show that every neighbourhood…
We prove that contact homeomorphisms preserve characteristic foliations on surfaces in contact $3$-manifolds. More precisely, since the characteristic foliation is a singular $1$-dimensional foliation, we show that singular points are…
We survey the interactions between foliations and contact structures in dimension three, with an emphasis on sutured manifolds and invariants of sutured contact manifolds. This paper contains two original results: the fact that a closed…
We describe notions of tautness that arise in the study of $C^0$ foliations, $C^{1,0}$ or smoother foliations, and in geometry. We give examples to show that these notions are different, and discuss how these differences impact some…
We present a new construction of codimension-one foliations from pairs of contact structures in dimension three. This constitutes a converse result to a celebrated theorem of Eliashberg and Thurston on approximations of foliations by…
A co-oriented foliation F of an oriented 3-manifold M is taut if and only if there is a map from M to the 2-sphere whose restriction to every leaf is a branched cover.
We study the topology of the space of smooth codimension one foliations on a closed 3-manifold. We regard this space as the space of integrable plane fields included in the space of all smooth plane fields. It has been known since the late…
Using deformations of foliations to contact structures as well as rigidity properties of Anosov foliations we provide infinite families of examples which show that the space of taut foliations in a given homotopy class of plane fields is in…
We present new open manifolds that are not homeomorphic to leaves of any C^0 codimension one foliation of a compact manifold. Among them are simply connected manifolds of dimension 5 or greater that are non-periodic in homotopy or homology,…
We consider the existence of symplectic and conformal symplectic codimension-one foliations on closed manifolds of dimension at least 5. Our main theorem, based on a recent result by Bertelson-Meigniez, states that in dimension at least 7…
On every compact and orientable three-manifold, we construct total foliations (three codimension 1 foliations that are transverse at every point). This construction can be performed on any homotopy class of plane fields with vanishing Euler…
A class of codimension one foliations has been recently introduced by imposing a natural compatibility condition with a closed maximally non-degenerate 2-form. In this paper we study for such foliations the information captured by a…
In this note we observe, answering a question of Eliashberg and Thurston, that all contact structures on a closed oriented 3-manifold are $C^\infty$-deformations of foliations.
We lay the foundations of convex hypersurface theory in contact topology, extending the work of Giroux in dimension three. Specifically, we prove that any closed hypersurface in a contact manifold can be $C^0$-approximated by a convex one.…
Let $M$ be a closed, orientable, and irreducible 3-manifold with Heegaard genus two. We prove that if the fundamental group of $M$ is left-orderable then $M$ admits a co-orientable taut foliation.
If $Y$ is a closed orientable graph manifold, we show that $Y$ admits a coorientable taut foliation if and only if $Y$ is not an L-space. Combined with previous work of Boyer and Clay, this implies that $Y$ is an L-space if and only if…
We show that the properties of admitting a co-oriented taut foliation and having a left-orderable fundamental group are equivalent for rational homology $3$-sphere graph manifolds and relate them to the property of not being a…
We show that any noncompact oriented surface is homeomorphic to the leaf of a minimal foliation of a closed $3$-manifold. These foliations are (or are covered by) suspensions of continuous minimal actions of surface groups on the circle.…