Foliations and Conjugacy II: The Mendes Conjecture for Time-One Maps of Flows

Abstract

A diffeomorphism $f:\mathbb{R}^2\to\mathbb{R}^2$ in the plane is Anosov if it has a hyperbolic splitting at every point of the plane. The two known topological conjugacy classes of such diffeomorphisms are linear hyperbolic automorphisms and translations (the existence of Anosov structures for plane translations was originally shown by W. White). P. Mendes conjectured that these are the only topological conjugacy classes for Anosov diffeomorphisms in the plane. We prove that this claim holds when the Anosov diffeomorphism is the time-one map of a flow, via a theorem about foliations invariant under a time one map.