Appears in collection : Foliations and Diffeomorphism Groups / Feuilletages et Groupes de Difféomorphisme
A theorem of Barbot (building on work of Ghys, Haefliger and others) says that Anosov flows on 3-manifolds are classified up to orbit equivalence by the data of a pair of transverse foliations of the plane and an action of the fundamental group of the 3-manifold. In recent work with T. Barthelmé, as well as C. Bonatti, S. Fenley and S. Frankel, we have been developing an abstract theory of Anosov-like group actions of bifoliated planes, applicable both to the study of flows and as an interesting class of foliation-preserving dynamical systems in its own right. This minicourse will explain some of this theory and the connections between flows and group actions in dimensions 1, 2 and 3.