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 (see Foliations#Holonomy) pseudogroup. As far as we know, the notion of a pseudogroup appeared for the first time in [Veblen&Whitehead1932] in the context of geometric objects studied in differential geometry. Pseudogroups have been brought into the foliation theory by Haefliger [Haefliger1962a]. The growth types of leaves (equivalent to the growth types of the corresponding orbits of holonomy pseudogroups) as well as the expansion growth of a foliation (or, its holonomy pseudogroup) describe some aspects of the foliation dynamics. Corresponding to the expansion growth is the notion of geometric entropy of a foliation [Ghys&Langevin&Walczak1988]. Vanishing entropy can be seen as a dynamical condition which occurs to have strong geometric and topological consequences (see Dynamics of foliations#Results on entropy) below.
2 Pseudogroups
The notion of a pseudogroup generalizes that of a group of
transformations. Given a space , any group of transformations of
consists of maps defined globally on
, mapping
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 and denote
by Homeo
the family of all
homeomorphisms between open subsets of
. If
Homeo
, then
is its domain and
.
Definition 2.1.
A subfamily of Homeo
is said to be a pseudogroup
if it
is closed under composition, inversion, restriction to open subdomains and
unions. More precisely,
should satisfy the following conditions:
(i) whenever
and
,
(ii) whenever
,
(iii) whenever
and
is
open,
(iv) if Homeo
,
is an open cover of
and
for any
, then
.
Moreover, we shall always assume that
(v] id (or, equivalently,
).
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, ,
, between open sets of a manifold, (3) all the restrictions to open domains of elements of a given group
of homeomorphisms of a given topological space. (In the last case, we say that the pseudogroup is generated by
.)
Any set
of homeomorphisms bewteen open sets (with domains covering a space
) generates ma pseudogroup
which is the smallest pseudogroup containing
; precisely a homeomorphism
belongs to
if and only if for any point
there exist elements
, exponents
and a neighbourhood
of
such that
on
. If
is finite,
is said to be finitely generated.
3 Holonomy pesudogroups
Definition 3.1. A foliated atlas on a foliated manifold
is said to be
nice (also, nice is the
Tex syntax errorby the domains


(i) the covering is locally finite,
(ii) for any ,
is an open cube,
(iii) if and
, and
,
then there exists a foliated chart chart
and such that
is an open cube,
contains the closure of
and
.
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 of a foliated manifold
. For
any
, let
be the space of the plaques (i.e., connected components of intersections
.
being a leaf of
) of
contained in
. Equip
with the quotient topology: two points of
are equivalent iff they belong to the same plaque.
is homeomorphic
(
-diffeomorphic when
is
-differentiable and
) to an
open cube
(
) via the map
, where
is a foliated chart on
.
The disjoint union

is called a complete transversal for . Transversality refers to the fact that, if
is differentiable of class
,
, each of the spaces
can be mapped homeomorphically onto a
-submanifold
transverse to
: if
and
is the leaf of
passing through
,
then

Completeness of means that every leaf of
intersects at least one
of the submanifolds
.
Definition 3.2. Given a nice covering of a foliated manifold
and two sets
and
such that
the holonomy map
,
being the open subset of
which consists of all the plaques
of
for which
, is defined in the following
way:

All the maps (
) generate a pseudogroup
on
.
is called the holonomy pseudogroup of
.
This means that any element of assigns to a plaque
the end plaque
of a chain (that is a sequence of plaques such that any two consequtive plaques intersect) which oroginates at
.
Certainly, holonomy pseudogroups of arbitrary compact foliated manifolds are finitely generated. For example, gluing together two 2-dimensional Reeb foliations (see Foliations#Reeb Foliations) on one gets a foliation of the 3-dimensional sphere
for which any arc
intersecting the unique toral leaf
is a complete transversal;
can be identified with a segment
(
), the point of intersection
with the number
, while the holonomy group with the one on our segment generated by two maps
such that
,
,
snd
contract their domains towards
.
4 Growth
Let us begin with two non-decreasing sequences and
of
non-negative numbers. We shall say that
"grows slower" that
(
) whenever there exist positive constants
and
such that the inequalities

hold for all . We say that types of growth
of our sequences
and
are the same whenever

Let now be the set of non-negative increasing functions defined on
:

and the set of increasing sequences with entries in
:

Elements of
can be identified with sequences
, so
can be considered as a subset of
.
A preorder defined by the condition:
(*) if and only
if there exists
such that for all
the inequalities
induces an equivalence relation in
:

In particular, if and
, then

and
![\displaystyle t\simeq\tau\Leftrightarrow a^{-1}\tau ([n/b] )\le t(n)\le a\tau (bn)](/images/math/3/9/9/39920075762460750ebcb56e656ecd68.png)
for all and some
. (Here,
is the largest
integer which does not exceed
,
.)
Definition 4.1. Elements of the quotient are called
growth types. The growth type of
(resp., of
) is denoted by
(resp., by
). Also,
we let
.
is the set of growth
types of monotone functions (in the sense of [Hector&Hirsch1981]). The preorder
induces a partial order (denoted again by
) in
.
Example 4.2. and all the growth types listed above are different. The growth
type of any polynomial of degree
is equal to
and is called
polynomial (of degree
).
for any
and this growth type is called exponential.
4.1 Growth in groups
For most of results listed here we refer to [Hector&Hirsch1981].
Let be a finitely generated group and
a finite {\it symmetric}
(i.e. such that
and
)
set generating it. For any
let

and

The type of growth of does not depend on
, so we may write the following.
Definition 4.3. The growth type
of
is defined as
for any finite symmetric generating set
. If
acts on a space
and
, then the growth type
of
at
is defined in a similar way:
, where

for any fixed finite symmetric generating set .
Example 4.4. A finite group has the growth type while the
abelian group
has the polynomial growth of degree
. Any free
(non-abelian) group has the exponential growth
.
Proposition 4.5. For any finitely generated group and
any normal subgroup
of
we have
Proposition 4.6. Any finitely generated abelian group of rank has the growth type
.
Proposition 4.7. Any finitely generated nilpotent group is of polynomial type of growth.
4.2 Orbit growth in pseudogroups
4.3 Expansion growth
5 Geometric entropy
6 Invariant measures
7 Results on entropy
8 References
- [Ghys&Langevin&Walczak1988] É. Ghys, R. Langevin and P. Walczak, Entropie géométrique des feuilletages, Acta Math. 160 (1988), no.1-2, 105–142. MR926526 (89a:57034) Zbl 0666.57021
- [Haefliger1962a] A. Haefliger, Variétés feuilletées, Ann. Scuola Norm. Sup. Pisa (3) 16 (1962), 367–397. MR0189060 (32 #6487) Zbl 0196.25005
- [Hector&Hirsch1981] G. Hector and U. Hirsch, Introduction to the geometry of foliations. Part A, Friedr. Vieweg \& Sohn, Braunschweig, 1981. MR639738 (83d:57019) Zbl 0628.57001
- [Veblen&Whitehead1932] O. Veblen and J. Whitehead, The foundations of differential geometry, Cambridge Tracts in Math. a. Math. Phys. 29) London: Cambridge Univ. Press. IX, 97 S., 1932. Zbl 0005.21801
- [Walczak2004] P. Walczak, Dynamics of foliations, groups and pseudogroups, Birkhäuser Verlag, 2004. MR2056374 (2005d:57042) Zbl 1084.37022



To make the above precise, let us take a topological space and denote
by Homeo
the family of all
homeomorphisms between open subsets of
. If
Homeo
, then
is its domain and
.
Definition 2.1.
A subfamily of Homeo
is said to be a pseudogroup
if it
is closed under composition, inversion, restriction to open subdomains and
unions. More precisely,
should satisfy the following conditions:
(i) whenever
and
,
(ii) whenever
,
(iii) whenever
and
is
open,
(iv) if Homeo
,
is an open cover of
and
for any
, then
.
Moreover, we shall always assume that
(v] id (or, equivalently,
).
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, ,
, between open sets of a manifold, (3) all the restrictions to open domains of elements of a given group
of homeomorphisms of a given topological space. (In the last case, we say that the pseudogroup is generated by
.)
Any set
of homeomorphisms bewteen open sets (with domains covering a space
) generates ma pseudogroup
which is the smallest pseudogroup containing
; precisely a homeomorphism
belongs to
if and only if for any point
there exist elements
, exponents
and a neighbourhood
of
such that
on
. If
is finite,
is said to be finitely generated.
3 Holonomy pesudogroups
Definition 3.1. A foliated atlas on a foliated manifold
is said to be
nice (also, nice is the
Tex syntax errorby the domains


(i) the covering is locally finite,
(ii) for any ,
is an open cube,
(iii) if and
, and
,
then there exists a foliated chart chart
and such that
is an open cube,
contains the closure of
and
.
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 of a foliated manifold
. For
any
, let
be the space of the plaques (i.e., connected components of intersections
.
being a leaf of
) of
contained in
. Equip
with the quotient topology: two points of
are equivalent iff they belong to the same plaque.
is homeomorphic
(
-diffeomorphic when
is
-differentiable and
) to an
open cube
(
) via the map
, where
is a foliated chart on
.
The disjoint union

is called a complete transversal for . Transversality refers to the fact that, if
is differentiable of class
,
, each of the spaces
can be mapped homeomorphically onto a
-submanifold
transverse to
: if
and
is the leaf of
passing through
,
then

Completeness of means that every leaf of
intersects at least one
of the submanifolds
.
Definition 3.2. Given a nice covering of a foliated manifold
and two sets
and
such that
the holonomy map
,
being the open subset of
which consists of all the plaques
of
for which
, is defined in the following
way:

All the maps (
) generate a pseudogroup
on
.
is called the holonomy pseudogroup of
.
This means that any element of assigns to a plaque
the end plaque
of a chain (that is a sequence of plaques such that any two consequtive plaques intersect) which oroginates at
.
Certainly, holonomy pseudogroups of arbitrary compact foliated manifolds are finitely generated. For example, gluing together two 2-dimensional Reeb foliations (see Foliations#Reeb Foliations) on one gets a foliation of the 3-dimensional sphere
for which any arc
intersecting the unique toral leaf
is a complete transversal;
can be identified with a segment
(
), the point of intersection
with the number
, while the holonomy group with the one on our segment generated by two maps
such that
,
,
snd
contract their domains towards
.
4 Growth
Let us begin with two non-decreasing sequences and
of
non-negative numbers. We shall say that
"grows slower" that
(
) whenever there exist positive constants
and
such that the inequalities

hold for all . We say that types of growth
of our sequences
and
are the same whenever

Let now be the set of non-negative increasing functions defined on
:

and the set of increasing sequences with entries in
:

Elements of
can be identified with sequences
, so
can be considered as a subset of
.
A preorder defined by the condition:
(*) if and only
if there exists
such that for all
the inequalities
induces an equivalence relation in
:

In particular, if and
, then

and
![\displaystyle t\simeq\tau\Leftrightarrow a^{-1}\tau ([n/b] )\le t(n)\le a\tau (bn)](/images/math/3/9/9/39920075762460750ebcb56e656ecd68.png)
for all and some
. (Here,
is the largest
integer which does not exceed
,
.)
Definition 4.1. Elements of the quotient are called
growth types. The growth type of
(resp., of
) is denoted by
(resp., by
). Also,
we let
.
is the set of growth
types of monotone functions (in the sense of [Hector&Hirsch1981]). The preorder
induces a partial order (denoted again by
) in
.
Example 4.2. and all the growth types listed above are different. The growth
type of any polynomial of degree
is equal to
and is called
polynomial (of degree
).
for any
and this growth type is called exponential.
4.1 Growth in groups
For most of results listed here we refer to [Hector&Hirsch1981].
Let be a finitely generated group and
a finite {\it symmetric}
(i.e. such that
and
)
set generating it. For any
let

and

The type of growth of does not depend on
, so we may write the following.
Definition 4.3. The growth type
of
is defined as
for any finite symmetric generating set
. If
acts on a space
and
, then the growth type
of
at
is defined in a similar way:
, where

for any fixed finite symmetric generating set .
Example 4.4. A finite group has the growth type while the
abelian group
has the polynomial growth of degree
. Any free
(non-abelian) group has the exponential growth
.
Proposition 4.5. For any finitely generated group and
any normal subgroup
of
we have
Proposition 4.6. Any finitely generated abelian group of rank has the growth type
.
Proposition 4.7. Any finitely generated nilpotent group is of polynomial type of growth.
4.2 Orbit growth in pseudogroups
4.3 Expansion growth
5 Geometric entropy
6 Invariant measures
7 Results on entropy
8 References
- [Ghys&Langevin&Walczak1988] É. Ghys, R. Langevin and P. Walczak, Entropie géométrique des feuilletages, Acta Math. 160 (1988), no.1-2, 105–142. MR926526 (89a:57034) Zbl 0666.57021
- [Haefliger1962a] A. Haefliger, Variétés feuilletées, Ann. Scuola Norm. Sup. Pisa (3) 16 (1962), 367–397. MR0189060 (32 #6487) Zbl 0196.25005
- [Hector&Hirsch1981] G. Hector and U. Hirsch, Introduction to the geometry of foliations. Part A, Friedr. Vieweg \& Sohn, Braunschweig, 1981. MR639738 (83d:57019) Zbl 0628.57001
- [Veblen&Whitehead1932] O. Veblen and J. Whitehead, The foundations of differential geometry, Cambridge Tracts in Math. a. Math. Phys. 29) London: Cambridge Univ. Press. IX, 97 S., 1932. Zbl 0005.21801
- [Walczak2004] P. Walczak, Dynamics of foliations, groups and pseudogroups, Birkhäuser Verlag, 2004. MR2056374 (2005d:57042) Zbl 1084.37022



To make the above precise, let us take a topological space and denote
by Homeo
the family of all
homeomorphisms between open subsets of
. If
Homeo
, then
is its domain and
.
Definition 2.1.
A subfamily of Homeo
is said to be a pseudogroup
if it
is closed under composition, inversion, restriction to open subdomains and
unions. More precisely,
should satisfy the following conditions:
(i) whenever
and
,
(ii) whenever
,
(iii) whenever
and
is
open,
(iv) if Homeo
,
is an open cover of
and
for any
, then
.
Moreover, we shall always assume that
(v] id (or, equivalently,
).
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, ,
, between open sets of a manifold, (3) all the restrictions to open domains of elements of a given group
of homeomorphisms of a given topological space. (In the last case, we say that the pseudogroup is generated by
.)
Any set
of homeomorphisms bewteen open sets (with domains covering a space
) generates ma pseudogroup
which is the smallest pseudogroup containing
; precisely a homeomorphism
belongs to
if and only if for any point
there exist elements
, exponents
and a neighbourhood
of
such that
on
. If
is finite,
is said to be finitely generated.
3 Holonomy pesudogroups
Definition 3.1. A foliated atlas on a foliated manifold
is said to be
nice (also, nice is the
Tex syntax errorby the domains


(i) the covering is locally finite,
(ii) for any ,
is an open cube,
(iii) if and
, and
,
then there exists a foliated chart chart
and such that
is an open cube,
contains the closure of
and
.
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 of a foliated manifold
. For
any
, let
be the space of the plaques (i.e., connected components of intersections
.
being a leaf of
) of
contained in
. Equip
with the quotient topology: two points of
are equivalent iff they belong to the same plaque.
is homeomorphic
(
-diffeomorphic when
is
-differentiable and
) to an
open cube
(
) via the map
, where
is a foliated chart on
.
The disjoint union

is called a complete transversal for . Transversality refers to the fact that, if
is differentiable of class
,
, each of the spaces
can be mapped homeomorphically onto a
-submanifold
transverse to
: if
and
is the leaf of
passing through
,
then

Completeness of means that every leaf of
intersects at least one
of the submanifolds
.
Definition 3.2. Given a nice covering of a foliated manifold
and two sets
and
such that
the holonomy map
,
being the open subset of
which consists of all the plaques
of
for which
, is defined in the following
way:

All the maps (
) generate a pseudogroup
on
.
is called the holonomy pseudogroup of
.
This means that any element of assigns to a plaque
the end plaque
of a chain (that is a sequence of plaques such that any two consequtive plaques intersect) which oroginates at
.
Certainly, holonomy pseudogroups of arbitrary compact foliated manifolds are finitely generated. For example, gluing together two 2-dimensional Reeb foliations (see Foliations#Reeb Foliations) on one gets a foliation of the 3-dimensional sphere
for which any arc
intersecting the unique toral leaf
is a complete transversal;
can be identified with a segment
(
), the point of intersection
with the number
, while the holonomy group with the one on our segment generated by two maps
such that
,
,
snd
contract their domains towards
.
4 Growth
Let us begin with two non-decreasing sequences and
of
non-negative numbers. We shall say that
"grows slower" that
(
) whenever there exist positive constants
and
such that the inequalities

hold for all . We say that types of growth
of our sequences
and
are the same whenever

Let now be the set of non-negative increasing functions defined on
:

and the set of increasing sequences with entries in
:

Elements of
can be identified with sequences
, so
can be considered as a subset of
.
A preorder defined by the condition:
(*) if and only
if there exists
such that for all
the inequalities
induces an equivalence relation in
:

In particular, if and
, then

and
![\displaystyle t\simeq\tau\Leftrightarrow a^{-1}\tau ([n/b] )\le t(n)\le a\tau (bn)](/images/math/3/9/9/39920075762460750ebcb56e656ecd68.png)
for all and some
. (Here,
is the largest
integer which does not exceed
,
.)
Definition 4.1. Elements of the quotient are called
growth types. The growth type of
(resp., of
) is denoted by
(resp., by
). Also,
we let
.
is the set of growth
types of monotone functions (in the sense of [Hector&Hirsch1981]). The preorder
induces a partial order (denoted again by
) in
.
Example 4.2. and all the growth types listed above are different. The growth
type of any polynomial of degree
is equal to
and is called
polynomial (of degree
).
for any
and this growth type is called exponential.
4.1 Growth in groups
For most of results listed here we refer to [Hector&Hirsch1981].
Let be a finitely generated group and
a finite {\it symmetric}
(i.e. such that
and
)
set generating it. For any
let

and

The type of growth of does not depend on
, so we may write the following.
Definition 4.3. The growth type
of
is defined as
for any finite symmetric generating set
. If
acts on a space
and
, then the growth type
of
at
is defined in a similar way:
, where

for any fixed finite symmetric generating set .
Example 4.4. A finite group has the growth type while the
abelian group
has the polynomial growth of degree
. Any free
(non-abelian) group has the exponential growth
.
Proposition 4.5. For any finitely generated group and
any normal subgroup
of
we have
Proposition 4.6. Any finitely generated abelian group of rank has the growth type
.
Proposition 4.7. Any finitely generated nilpotent group is of polynomial type of growth.
4.2 Orbit growth in pseudogroups
4.3 Expansion growth
5 Geometric entropy
6 Invariant measures
7 Results on entropy
8 References
- [Ghys&Langevin&Walczak1988] É. Ghys, R. Langevin and P. Walczak, Entropie géométrique des feuilletages, Acta Math. 160 (1988), no.1-2, 105–142. MR926526 (89a:57034) Zbl 0666.57021
- [Haefliger1962a] A. Haefliger, Variétés feuilletées, Ann. Scuola Norm. Sup. Pisa (3) 16 (1962), 367–397. MR0189060 (32 #6487) Zbl 0196.25005
- [Hector&Hirsch1981] G. Hector and U. Hirsch, Introduction to the geometry of foliations. Part A, Friedr. Vieweg \& Sohn, Braunschweig, 1981. MR639738 (83d:57019) Zbl 0628.57001
- [Veblen&Whitehead1932] O. Veblen and J. Whitehead, The foundations of differential geometry, Cambridge Tracts in Math. a. Math. Phys. 29) London: Cambridge Univ. Press. IX, 97 S., 1932. Zbl 0005.21801
- [Walczak2004] P. Walczak, Dynamics of foliations, groups and pseudogroups, Birkhäuser Verlag, 2004. MR2056374 (2005d:57042) Zbl 1084.37022