Dynamics of foliations

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Contents

1 Introduction

Foliations of Riemannian manifolds can be considered as multidimensional dynamical systems: Riemannian structure (more precisely, Riemannian structure along the leaves) plays the role of time, the leaves play the role of orbits [Walczak2004]. The dynamics of a foliation can be described in terms of its holonomy psudogroup (see Foliations#Holonomy).


2 Pseudogroups

The notion of a pseudogroup generalizes that of a group of transformations. Given a space X, any group of transformations of X consists of maps defined globally on X, mapping X bijectively onto itself and such that the composition of any two of them as well as the inverse of any of them belongs to the group. The same holds for a pseudogroup with this difference that the maps are not defined globally but on open subsets, so the domain of the composition is usually smaller than those of the maps being composed.

To make the above precise, let us take a topological space X and denote by Homeo\, (X) the family of all homeomorphisms between open subsets of X. If g\in Homeo\, (X), then D_g is its domain and R_g = g(D_g).

Definition 2.1. A subfamily \Gamma of Homeo\, (X) is said to be a pseudogroup if it is closed under composition, inversion, restriction to open subdomains and unions. More precisely, \Gamma should satisfy the following conditions:

(i) g\circ h\in\Gamma whenever g and h\in\Gamma,

(ii) g^{-1}\in\Gamma whenever g\in\Gamma,

(iii) g|U\in\Gamma whenever g\in\Gamma and U\subset D_g is open,

(iv) if g\in Homeo\, (X), \mathcal{U} is an open cover of D_g and g|U\in\Gamma for any U\in\mathcal{U}, then g\in\Gamma.

Moreover, we shall always assume that

(v] id_X\in\Gamma (or, equivalently, \cup\{ D_g; g\in\Gamma\} = X).


As examples, one may have (1) all the homeomorphisms between open sets of a topological space, (2) all the diffeomorhisms of a given class (say, C^k, k =  1, 2, \ldots, \infty, \omega, between open sets of a manifold, (3) all the restrictions to open domains of elements of a given group G of homeomorphisms of a given topological space. (In the last case, we say that the pseudogroup is generated by G.) Any set A of homeomorphisms bewteen open sets (with domains covering a space X) generates ma pseudogroup \Gamma (A) which is the smallest pseudogroup containing A; precisely a homeomorphism h:D_h\to R_h belongs to \Gamma (A) if and only if for any point x\in D_h there exist elements h_1, \ldots, h_k\in A, exponents \epsilon _1, \ldots, \epsilon _k\in\{ \pm 1\} and a neighbourhood V of x such that h = h_1^{\epsilon _1}\circ\ldots\circ h_k^{\epsilon _k} on V. If A is finite, \Gamma (A) is said to be finitely generated.


3 Holonomy pesudogroups

Definition 3.1. A foliated atlas \mathcal{A} on a foliated manifold (M, \mathcal{F}) is said to be nice (also, nice is the covering of M by the domains D_\phi of the charts \phi\in\mathcal{A}) if

(i) the covering \{ D_\phi ; \phi\in\mathcal{A}\} is locally finite,

(ii) for any \phi\in\mathcal{A}, R_\phi = \phi (D_\phi )\subset\Bbb R^n is an open cube,

(iii) if \phi and \psi\in\mathcal{A}, and D_\phi\cap D_\psi\ne\emptyset, then there exists a foliated chart chart \chi and such that R_\chi is an open cube, D_\chi contains the closure of D_\phi\cup D_\psi and \phi = \chi |D_\phi.

Since manifolds are supposed to be paracompact here, they are separable and hence nice coverings are denumerable. Nice coverings on compact manifolds are finite. On arbitrary foliated manfiolds, nice coverings do exist.

Given a nice covering \mathcal{U} of a foliated manifold (M, \mathcal{F}). For any U\in\mathcal{U}, let T_U be the space of the plaques (i.e., connected components of intersections U\cap L. L being a leaf of \mathcal{F}) of \mathcal{F} contained in U. Equip T_U = U/(\mathcal{F}|U) with the quotient topology: two points of U are equivalent iff they belong to the same plaque. T_U is homeomorphic (C^r-diffeomorphic when \mathcal{F} is C^r-differentiable and r\ge 1) to an open cube Q\subset\Bbb R^q (q = \text{codim}\, \mathcal{F}) via the map \phi'', where \phi = (\phi ', \phi ''):U\to\Bbb R^p\times\Bbb R^q is a foliated chart on U. The disjoint union

\displaystyle T = \sqcup\{T_U; U\in\mathcal{U}\}

is called a complete transversal for \mathcal{F}. Transversality refers to the fact that, if \mathcal{F} is differentiable, each of the spaces T_U can be mapped homeomorphically onto a C^r-submanifold T_U'\subset U transverse to U: if x\in T_U' and L is the leaf of \mathcal{F} passing through x, then

\displaystyle T_xM = T_xT_U'\oplus T_xL.

Completeness of T means that every leaf of \mathcal{F} intersects at least one of the submanifolds T_U'.

Definition 3.2. Given a nice covering \mathcal{U} of a foliated manifold (M,\mathcal{F}) and two sets U and V\in\mathcal{U} such that U\cap V\ne\emptyset the holonomy map h_{VU}: D_{VU}\to T_V, D_{VU} being the open subset of T_U which consists of all the plaques P of U for which P\cap V\ne\emptyset, is defined in the following way:

\displaystyle  h_{VU}(P) = P'\ \Leftrightarrow\ \text{the plaques}\ P\subset U\ \text{and}\ P'\subset V\ \text{intersect}.

All the maps h_{UV} (U, V\in\mathcal{U}) generate a pseudogroup \mathcal{H} on T. \mathcal{H} is called the holonomy pseudogroup of \mathcal{F}.


4 Growth



5 Geometric entropy



6 Invariant measures



7 Results on entropy



8 References

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