Foliations forcing closed orbits

Abstract

We study foliations which force every transverse flow to have a closed orbit. We fully characterize this property among $C^2$ finite depth foliations on atoroidal 3-manifolds. We also show that for many foliations, this property can be broken by a $C^0$-small modification of the foliation. We produce closed orbits using the theory of endperiodic maps, and we construct $C^1$ flows without closed orbits by inserting dynamical plugs transverse to foliations along curves of attracting holonomy.

arXiv comment40 pages, 6 figures. Comments welcome!