Topological aspects of completely integrable foliations

Abstract

In this paper it is shown that the existence of two independent holomorphic first integrals for foliations by curves on (C^3,0) is not a topological invariant. More precisely, we provide an example of two topologically equivalent foliations such that only one of them admits two independent holomorphic first integrals. The existence of invariant surfaces over which the induced foliation possesses infinitely many separatrices possibly constitutes the sole obstruction for the topological invariance of complete integrability and a characterization of foliations admitting this type of invariant surfaces is also given.