Confoliations

This book presents the first steps of a theory of confoliations designed to link geometry and topology of three-dimensional contact structures with the geometry and topology of codimension-one foliations on three-dimensional manifolds. Developing almost independently, these theories at first glance belonged to two different worlds: The theory of foliations is part of topology and dynamical systems, while contact geometry is the odd-dimensional "brother" of symplectic geometry. However, both theories have developed a number of striking similarities. Confoliations--which interpolate between contact structures and codimension-one foliations--should help us to understand better links between the two theories. These links provide tools for transporting results from one field to the other.

William Thurston's work has had a profound influence on mathematics. He connected whole mathematical subjects in entirely new ways and changed the way mathematicians think about geometry, topology, foliations, group theory, dynamical systems, and the way these areas interact. His emphasis on understanding and imagination in mathematical learning and thinking are integral elements of his distinctive legacy. This four-part collection brings together in one place Thurston's major writings, many of which are appearing in publication for the first time. Volumes I–III contain commentaries by the Editors. Volume IV includes a preface by Steven P. Kerckhoff. Volume I contains William Thurston's papers on foliations, mapping classes groups, and differential geometry.

This volume contains surveys and research articles regarding different aspects of the theory of foliation. The main aspects concern the topology of foliations of low-dimensional manifolds, the geometry of foliated Riemannian manifolds and the dynamical properties of foliations. Among the surveys are lecture notes devoted to the analysis of some operator algebras on foliated manifolds and the theory of confoliations (objects defined recently by W Thurston and Y Eliashberg, situated between foliations and contact structures). Among the research articles one can find a detailed proof of an unpublished theorem (due to Duminy) concerning ends of leaves in exceptional minimal sets. Contents:Survey Articles:Some Results on Secondary Characteristic Classes of Transversely Holomorphic Foliations (T Asuke)LS-Categories for Foliated Manifolds (H Colman)Dynamics and the Godbillon–Vey Class: A History and Survey (S Hurder)Similarity and Conformal Geometry of Foliations (R Langevin)Foliations and Contact Structures on 3-Manifolds (Y Mitsumatsu)Operator Algebras and the Index Theorem on Foliated Manifolds (H Moriyoshi)Research Articles:Distributional Betti Numbers of Transitive Foliations of Codimension One (J Álvarez-López & Y Kordyukov)Tautly Foliated 3-Manifolds with No R-Covered Foliations (M Brittenham)Endests of Exceptional Leaves — A Theorem of G Duminy (J Cantwell & L Conlon)Foliations and Compactly Generated Pseudogroups (A Haefliger)Transverse Lusternik–Schnirelmann Category and Non-Proper Leaves (R Langevin & P Walczak)On Exact Poisson Manifolds of Dimension 3 (T Mizutani)On the Perfectness of Groups of Diffeomorphisms of the Interval Tangent to the Identity at the Endpoints (T Tsuboi)and other papers Readership: Researchers interested in mathematics, especially in fields related to differential geometry and topology, and the theory of dynamical systems. Keywords:Proceedings;Workshop;Geometry;Warsaw (Poland);Dynamics;Euroworkshop

Contains surveys and research articles regarding different aspects of the theory of foliation.

Low-dimensional topology has long been a fertile area for the interaction of many different disciplines of mathematics, including differential geometry, hyperbolic geometry, combinatorics, representation theory, global analysis, classical mechanics, and theoretical physics. The Park City Mathematics Institute summer school in 2006 explored in depth the most exciting recent aspects of this interaction, aimed at a broad audience of both graduate students and researchers. The present volume is based on lectures presented at the summer school on low-dimensional topology. These notes give fresh, concise, and high-level introductions to these developments, often with new arguments not found elsewhere. The volume will be of use both to graduate students seeking to enter the field of low-dimensional topology and to senior researchers wishing to keep up with current developments. The volume begins with notes based on a special lecture by John Milnor about the history of the topology of manifolds. It also contains notes from lectures by Cameron Gordon on the basics of three-manifold topology and surgery problems, Mikhail Khovanov on his homological invariants for knots, John Etnyre on contact geometry, Ron Fintushel and Ron Stern on constructions of exotic four-manifolds, David Gabai on the hyperbolic geometry and the ending lamination theorem, Zoltan Szabo on Heegaard Floer homology for knots and three manifolds, and John Morgan on Hamilton's and Perelman's work on Ricci flow and geometrization.

A variety of introductory articles is provided on a wide range of topics, including variational problems on curves and surfaces with anisotropic curvature. Experts in the fields of Riemannian, Lorentzian and contact geometry present state-of-the-art reviews of their topics. The contributions are written on a graduate level and contain extended bibliographies. The ten chapters are the result of various doctoral courses which were held in 2009 and 2010 at universities in Leuven, Serbia, Romania and Spain.

This volume presents some of the lectures and research during the special programme held at the Newton Institute in 1994. The two parts each contain a mix of substantial expository articles and research papers that outline important and topical ideas. Many of the results have not been presented before, and the lectures on Floer homology is the first avaliable in book form.Symplectic methods are one of the most active areas of research in mathematics currently, and this volume will attract much attention.