Partially hyperbolic diffeomorphisms homotopic to the identity in dimension 3, II: Branching foliations

Abstract

We study 3–dimensional partially hyperbolic diffeomorphisms that are homotopic to the identity, focusing on the geometry and dynamics of Burago and Ivanov’s center stable and center unstable branching foliations. This extends our previous study of the true foliations that appear in the dynamically coherent case. We complete the classification of such diffeomorphisms in Seifert fibered manifolds. In hyperbolic manifolds, we show that any such diffeomorphism is either dynamically coherent and has a power that is a discretized Anosov flow, or is of a new potential class called a double translation