Geometry and Topology Seminar

A depth 1 foliation on a 3-manifold is a foliation having finitely many compact leaves and with all other leaves spiraling into the compact leaves. These are a natural extension of fibrations of 3-manifolds over $S^1$, and as shown in work of Cantwell, Conlon, and Fenley, a lot of that theory carries over. In this talk, we will first recall how the recent theory of veering branched surfaces offers a neat package of much that is known about fibrations, and explain how these can be generalized to apply to depth 1 foliations, providing a new way of studying finite depth foliations and their associated big mapping classes. This is joint work with Michael Landry.