The great-circle conjecture for noncompact base directions

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Let V:R3→S2V:\mathbb R^3\to S^2 be a unit vector field defining a fibration of R3\mathbb R^3 by oriented lines. Put U=V(R3)U=V(\mathbb R^3), and for u∈Uu\in U let u⊥u^\perp be the plane through the origin orthogonal to uu and define

Su=u⊥∩V−1(u).S_u=u^\perp\cap V^{-1}(u).

Great-circle conjecture. If there exist multiple u∈Uu\in U for which SuS_u is noncompact, then the set of such uu is contained in some great circle in S2S^2.

The theorem preceding this conjecture shows that the noncompact base spaces are precisely the source of the less-understood behavior not covered by the all-compact or all-noncompact cases. The conjecture concerns the possible directions of these noncompact base spaces; its resolution is not indicated here.

References

Primary source

Michael Harrison, “Fibrations of R^3 by oriented lines”, arXiv:1911.06804 (2019).

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