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Leafwise smoothing laminations

We show that every topological surface lamination of a 3-manifold M is isotopic to one with smoothly immersed leaves. This carries out a project proposed by Gabai in [Problems in foliations and laminations, AMS/IP Stud. Adv. Math. 2.2 1--33]. Consequently any such lamination admits the structure of a Riemann surface lamination, and therefore useful structure theorems of Candel [Uniformization of surface laminations, Ann. Sci. Ecole Norm. Sup. 26 (1993) 489--516] and Ghys [Dynamique et geometrie complexes, Panoramas et Syntheses 8 (1999)] apply.