Generic properties of 3-dimensional Reeb flows: Birkhoff sections and entropy

In this paper we use broken book decompositions to study Reeb flows on closed 3 -manifolds. We show that if the Liouville measure of a non-degenerate contact form can be approximated by periodic orbits, then there is a Birkhoff section for the associated Reeb flow. In view of Irie’s equidistribution theorem, this is shown to imply that the set of contact forms whose Reeb flows have a Birkhoff section contains an open and dense set in the C^ -topology. We also show that the set of contact forms whose Reeb flows have positive topological entropy is open and dense in the C^ -topology.