Geometry of certain foliations on the complex projective plane

TL;DR

This paper studies the geometric structure of foliations on the complex projective plane, classifying minimal orbit dimensions, identifying closed orbits, and analyzing basins of attraction, revealing new phenomena in degrees three and higher.

Contribution

It generalizes known results for degrees 2 and 3, classifies orbit closures, and introduces the basin of attraction concept for foliations on the complex projective plane.

Findings

Exactly two minimal orbit dimension classes in all degrees.

Existence of closed orbits beyond the minimal ones for degrees ≥ 3.

Large basins of attraction containing open subsets in degree 3.

Abstract

Let $d\geq2$ be an integer. The set $\mathbf{F}(d)$ of foliations of degree $d$ on the complex projective plane can be identified with a Zariski's open set of a projective space of dimension $d^2+4d+2$ on which $\mathrm{Aut}(\mathbb P^2_{\mathbb C})$ acts. We show that there are exactly two orbits $\mathcal{O}(\mathcal{F}_{1}^{d})$ and $\mathcal{O}(\mathcal{F}_{2}^{d})$ of minimal dimension $6$, necessarily closed in $\mathbf{F}(d)$. This generalizes known results in degrees $2$ and $3.$ We deduce that an orbit $\mathcal{O}(\mathcal{F})$ of an element $\mathcal{F}\in\mathbf{F}(d)$ of dimension $7$ is closed in $\mathbf{F}(d)$ if and only if $\mathcal{F}_{i}^{d}\not\in\overline{\mathcal{O}(\mathcal{F})}$ for $i=1,2.$ This allows us to show that in any degree $d\geq3$ there are closed orbits in $\mathbf F(d)$ other than the orbits $\mathcal{O}(\mathcal{F}_{1}^{d})$ and $\mathcal{O}(\mathcal{F}_{2}^{d}),$ unlike the situation in degree $2.$ On the other hand, we introduce the notion of the basin of attraction $\mathbf{B}(\mathcal{F})$ of a foliation $\mathcal{F}\in\mathbf{F}(d)$ as the set of $\mathcal{G}\in\mathbf{F}(d)$ such that $\mathcal{F}\in\overline{\mathcal{O}(\mathcal{G})}.$ We show that the basin of attraction $\mathbf{B}(\mathcal{F}_{1}^{d})$, resp. $\mathbf{B}(\mathcal{F}_{2}^{d})$, contains a quasi-projective subvariety of $\mathbf{F}(d)$ of dimension greater than or equal to $\dim\mathbf{F}(d)-(d-1)$, resp. $\dim \mathbf{F}(d)-(d-3)$. In particular, we obtain that the basin $\mathbf{B}(\mathcal{F}_{2}^{3})$ contains a non-empty Zariski open subset of $\mathbf{F}(3)$. This is an analog in degree $3$ of a result on foliations of degree $2$ due to Cerveau, D\'eserti, Garba Belko and Meziani.