A characterization of pseudo-Anosov orbit spaces via bifoliated planes

Abstract

We characterize the actions on bifoliated planes that arise as orbits spaces of transitive pseudo-Anosov flows on orientable closed 3-manifold. We use branched covers, veering triangulations, and a new compactness criterion to extend previous work that handled the special case where the plane has no odd-prong singularities and the action preserves a leafwise orientation on the foliations.