We show that if M is a hyperbolic 3-manifold which admits a quasigeodesic flow, then pi_1(M) acts faithfully on a universal circle by homeomorphisms, and preserves a pair of invariant laminations of this circle. As a corollary, we show that the Thurston norm can be characterized by quasigeodesic flows, thereby generalizing a theorem of Mosher, and we give the first example of a closed hyperbolic 3-manifold without a quasigeodesic flow, answering a long-standing question of Thurston.
If M is a hyperbolic 3-manifold with a quasigeodesic flow then we show that π_1(M) acts in a natural way on a closed disc by homeomorphisms. Consequently, such a flow either has a closed orbit or the action on the boundary circle is Möbius-like but not conjugate into PSL(2, R). We conjecture that the latter possibility cannot occur.
In this article we obtain a simple topological and dynamical systems condition which is necessary and sufficient for an arbitrary pseudo-Anosov flow in a closed, hyperbolic three manifold to be quasigeodesic. Quasigeodesic means that orbits are efficient in measuring length up to a bounded multiplicative distortion when lifted to the universal cover. We prove that such flows are quasigeodesic if and only if there is an upper bound, depending only on the flow, to the number of orbits which are freely homotopic to an arbitrary closed orbit of the flow. The main ingredient is a proof that under t…
Florida State University（佛罗里达州立大学）；CNRS, Institut de Mathématiques de Jussieu - Paris Rive Gauche（法国国家科学研究中心，儒勒·让数学家研究所-巴黎左岸）；Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad de la República（乌拉圭共和国大学理学院）
Given a uniform foliation by Gromov hyperbolic leaves on a $3$-manifold, we show that the action of the fundamental group on the universal circle is minimal and transitive on pairs of different points. We also prove two other results: we prove that general uniform Reebless foliations are $\mathbb{R}$-covered and we give a new description of the universal circle of $\mathbb{R}$-covered foliations with Gromov hyperbolic leaves in terms of the JSJ decomposition of $M$.
Let F be a foliation in a closed 3-manifold with negatively curved fundamental group and suppose that F is almost transverse to a quasigeodesic pseudo-Anosov flow. We show that the leaves of the foliation in the universal cover extend continuously to the sphere at infinity, hence the limit sets are continuous images of the circle. One important corollary is that if F is a Reebless finite depth foliation in a hyperbolic manifold, then it has the continuous extension property. Such finite depth foliations exist whenever the second Betti number is non zero. The result also applies to other classe…
We consider two manifestations of non-positive curvature: acylindrical actions on hyperbolic spaces and quasigeodesic stability. We study these properties for the class of hierarchically hyperbolic groups, which is a general framework for studying many important families of groups, including mapping class groups, right-angled Coxeter and Artin groups, most 3-manifold groups, and many others. A group that admits an acylindrical action on a hyperbolic space may admit many such actions on different hyperbolic spaces, so it is natural to search for a "best" one. The set of all cobounded acylindric…
Given a general pseudo-Anosov flow in a three manifold, the orbit space of the lifted flow to the universal cover is homeomorphic to an open disk. We compactify this orbit space with an ideal circle boundary. If there are no perfect fits between stable and unstable leaves and the flow is not topologically conjugate to a suspension Anosov flow, we then show: The ideal circle of the orbit space has a natural quotient space which is a sphere and is a dynamical systems ideal boundary for a compactification of the universal cover of the manifold. The main result is that the fundamental group acts o…
This paper investigates certain foliations of three-manifolds that are hybrids of fibrations over the circle with foliated circle bundles over surfaces: a 3-manifold slithers around the circle when its universal cover fibers over the circle so that deck transformations are bundle automorphisms. Examples include hyperbolic 3-manifolds of every possible homological type. We show that all such foliations admit transverse pseudo-Anosov flows, and that in the universal cover of the hyperbolic cases, the leaves limit to sphere-filling Peano curves. The skew R-covered Anosov foliations of Sergio Fenl…
Let $F$ be a leafwise hyperbolic taut foliation of a closed 3-manifold $M$ and let $L$ be the leaf space of the pullback of $F$ to the universal cover of $M$. We show that if $F$ has branching, then the natural action of $π_1(M)$ on $L$ is faithful. We also show that if $F$ has a finite branch locus $B$ whose stabilizer acts on $B$ nontrivially, then the stabilizer is an infinite cyclic group generated by an indivisible element of $π_1(M)$.
Thurston showed that the fundamental group of a close atoroidal 3-manifold admitting a co-oriented taut foliation acts faithfully on the circle by orientation-preserving homeomorphisms. This action on the circle is called a universal circle action due to its rich information. In this article, we first review Thurston's theory of universal circles and follow-up work of other authors. We note that the universal circle action of a 3-manifold group always admits an invariant lamination. A group acting on the circle with an invariant lamination is called a laminar group. In the second half of the p…
In the first part of the paper we describe the complex geometry of the universal Teichmüller space $\mathcal T$, which may be realized as an open subset in the complex Banach space of holomorphic quadratic differentials in the unit disc. The quotient $\mathcal S$ of the diffeomorphism group of the circle modulo Möbius transformations may be treated as a smooth part of $\mathcal T$. In the second part we consider the quantization of universal Teichmüller space $\mathcal T$. We explain first how to quantize the smooth part $\mathcal S$ by embedding it into a Hilbert-Schmidt Siegel disc. This qua…
A foliation is R-covered if the leaf space in the universal cover is homeomorphic to the real numbers. We show that, up to topological conjugacy, there are at most two pseudo-Anosov flows transverse to such a foliation. If there are two, then the foliation is weakly conjugate to the the stable foliation of an R-covered Anosov flow. The proof uses the universal circle to R-covered foliations.
The Andreev-Thurston theorem states that for any triangulation of a closed orientable surface Σ_g of genus g which is covered by a simple graph in the universal cover, there exists a unique metric of curvature 1, 0 or -1 on the surface depending on whether g=0, 1 or \ge 2 such that the surface with this metric admits a circle packing with combinatorics given by the triangulation. Furthermore, the circle packing is essentially rigid, that is, unique up to conformal automorphisms of the surface isotopic to the identity. In this paper, we consider projective structures on the surface Σ_g where ci…
If M is an atoroidal 3-manifold with a taut foliation, Thurston showed that pi_1(M) acts on a circle. Here, we show that some other classes of essential laminations also give rise to actions on circles. In particular, we show this for tight essential laminations with solid torus guts. We also show that pseudo-Anosov flows induce actions on circles. In all cases, these actions can be made into faithful ones, so pi_1(M) is isomorphic to a subgroup of Homeo(S^1). In addition, we show that the fundamental group of the Weeks manifold has no faithful action on S^1. As a corollary, the Weeks manifold…
We investigate a PL topology question: which circle bundles can be triangulated over a given triangulation of the base? The question got a simple answer emphasizing the role of minimal triangulations encoded by local systems of circular permutations of vertices of the base simplices. The answer is based on an experimental fact: classical Huntington transitivity axiom for cyclic orders can be expressed as the universal binary Chern cocycle.
Let Σ_g be a closed orientable surface of genus g \geq 2 and τa graph on Σ_g with one vertex which lifts to a triangulation of the universal cover. We have shown that the cross ratio parameter space \mathcal{C}_τassociated with τ, which can be identified with the set of all pairs of a projective structure and a circle packing on it with nerve isotopic to τ, is homeomorphic to \mathbb{R}^{6g-6}, and moreover that the forgetting map of \mathcal{C}_τto the space of projective structures is injective. In this paper, we show that the composition of the forgetting map with the uniformization from \m…
We show that for a taut foliation F with one-sided branching of an atoroidal 3-manifold M, one can construct a pair of genuine laminations with solid torus complementary regions which bind every leaf of F in a geodesic lamination. These laminations come from a universal circle, a refinement of the universal circles proposed by Thurston, which maps monotonely and group-equivariantly to each of the circles at infinity of the leaves of the universal cover of F, and is minimal with respect to this property. This circle is intimately bound up with the extrinsic geometry of the leaves of F. In parti…
We consider the Weil--Petersson (WP) metric on the modular surface. We lift WP geodesics to the universal cover of the modular surface and analyse geometric properties of the lifts as paths in the hyperbolic metric on the universal cover. For any pair of distinct points in the thick part of the universal cover, we prove that the WP and hyperbolic geodesic segments that connect the pair, fellow-travel in the thick part and all deviations between these segments arise during cusp excursions. Furthermore, we give a quantitative analysis of the deviation during an excursion. We leverage the fellow …
We propose a program to study groups acting faithfully on S^1 in terms of number of pairwise transverse dense invariant laminations. We give some examples of groups which admit a small number of invariant laminations as an introduction to such groups. Main focus of the present paper is to characterize Fuchsian groups in this scheme. We prove a group acting on S^1 is conjugate to a Fuchsian group if and only if it admits three very-full laminations with a variation of the transversality condition. Some partial results toward a similar characterization of hyperbolic 3-manifold groups which fiber…
Let $\cT$ be Teichmüller space of a closed surface of genus at least 2. For any point $c\in \cT$, we describe an action of the circle on $\cT\times \cT$, which limits to the earthquake flow when one of the parameters goes to a measured lamination in the Thurston boundary of $\cT$. This circle action shares some of the main properties of the earthquake flow, for instance it satisfies an extension of Thurston's Earthquake Theorem and it has a complex extension which is analogous and limits to complex earthquakes. Moreover, a related circle action on $\cT\times \cT$ extends to the product of two …
In genus two and higher, the fundamental group of a closed surface acts naturally on the curve complex of the surface with one puncture. Combining ideas from previous work of Kent--Leininger--Schleimer and Mitra, we construct a universal Cannon--Thurston map from a subset of the circle at infinity for the closed surface group onto the boundary of the curve complex of the once-punctured surface. Using the techniques we have developed, we also show that the boundary of this curve complex is locally path-connected.
