Explicit integration, birational models and symmetries of Lins Neto's exceptional families of foliations

Abstract

In 2002, Lins Neto introduced three remarkable one-parameter families of holomorphic foliations by curves on the complex projective plane, of degrees two, three, and four, whose properties established that the general form of the Poincaré Problem had no solution. These foliations are known to be birationally equivalent to certain quotients of linear foliations on abelian surfaces. We give explicit formulas for these birational equivalences, obtaining, in particular, parametrizations of the leaves of the foliations. For the families of degrees three and four, we determine explicit generators for the groups of birational transformations of the projective plane preserving them. For foliations in these families admitting a rational first integral, that is, for those whose parameter is an Eisenstein rational, we give a complete description of the nature and position of the singular points of a generic integral curve, and we present an algorithm that computes the rational first integral explicitly. Lins Neto's foliations can also be defined over algebraically closed fields of positive characteristic, and, in this setting, we characterize those that are algebraically integrable. Finally, we study the integrability of the reductions to fields of positive characteristic of some of the non-integrable foliations in the complex family.