A brief history of the investigation of the Weil-Petersson curvature and a summary of Teichmüller theory are provided. A report is presented on the program to describe an intrinsic geometry with the Weil-Petersson metric and geodesic-length functions. Formulas for the metric, covariant derivative and formulas for the curvature tensor are presented. A discussion of methods is included. Recent and new applications are sketched, including results from the work of Liu-Sun-Yau, an examination of the Yamada model metric and a description of Jacobi fields along geodesics to the boundary.
In this paper we study the injectivity radius based at a fixed point along Weil-Petersson geodesics. We show that the square root of the injectivity radius based at a fixed point is $ 0.3884$-Lipschitz on Teichmüller space endowed with the Weil-Petersson metric. As an application we reprove that the square root of the systole function is uniformly Lipschitz on Teichmüller space endowed with the Weil-Petersson metric, where the Lipschitz constant can be chosen to be $0.5492$. Applications to asymptotic geometry of moduli space of Riemann surfaces for large genus will also be discussed.
We show that the strong asymptotic class of Weil-Petersson (WP) geodesics with narrow end invariant and bounded annular coefficients is determined by the forward ending lamination. This generalizes the Recurrent Ending Lamination Theorem of Brock-Masur-Minsky. As an application we provide a symbolic condition for divergence of WP geodesic rays in the moduli space.
We extend a theorem of Masur and Wolf which says that given a hyperbolic surface S, every isometry of the Teichmuller space for S with the Weil-Petersson metric is induced by an element of the mapping class group for S. Our argument handles the previously untreated cases of the four-holed sphere, the one-holed torus, and the two-holed torus.
Given a closed hyperbolic 3-manifold T_ψthat fibers over the circle with monodromy ψ: S -> S, the monodromy $ψ$ determines an isometry of Teichmuller space with its Weil-Petersson metric whose translation distance ||ψ||_WP is positive. We show there is a constant K >= 1 depending only on the topology of S so that the volume of T_ψsatisfies ||ψ||_WP/K <= vol(T_ψ) <= K ||ψ||_WP.
We prove that every Weil-Petersson isometry of the Teichmuller space T(g,n) is induced by an element of the extended mapping class group; here 3g-3+n > 1 and (g,n) is not (1,2). Our method follows Ivanov's proof of the Royden's analogous theorem for the Teichmuller metric: we study the action of an isometry on the frontier of the metric completion of the Teichmuller space, and show that the isometry then induces an automorphism on the relevant complex of curves. Some synthetic geometry of the Weil-Petersson metric completes the proof.
Making use of the dual Bonahon-Schläfli formula, we prove that the dual volume of the convex core of a quasi-Fuchsian manifold $M$ is bounded by an explicit constant, depending only on the topology of $M$, times the Weil-Petersson distance between the hyperbolic structures on the upper and lower boundary components of the convex core of $M$.
Uniform bounds are developed for derivatives of solutions of the $2$-dimensional constant negative curvature equation and the Weil-Petersson metric for the Teichmüller and moduli spaces. The dependence of the bounds on the geometry of the underlying Riemann surface is studied. The comparisons between the $C^0$, $C^{2,α}$ and $L^2$ norms for harmonic Beltrami differentials are analyzed. Uniform bounds are given for the covariant derivatives of the Weil-Petersson curvature tensor in terms of the systoles of the underlying Riemann surfaces and the projections of the differentiation directions ont…
In this article we show that for every finite area hyperbolic surface $X$ of type $(g,n)$ and any harmonic Beltrami differential $μ$ on $X$, then the magnitude of $μ$ at any point of small injectivity radius is uniform bounded from above by the ratio of the Weil-Petersson norm of $μ$ over the square root of the systole of $X$ up to a uniform positive constant multiplication. We apply the uniform bound above to show that the Weil-Petersson Ricci curvature, restricted at any hyperbolic surface of short systole in the moduli space, is uniformly bounded from below by the negative reciprocal of the…
In general, it is difficult to measure distances in the Weil-Petersson metric on Teichmüller space. Here we consider the distance between strata in the Weil-Petersson completion of Teichmüller space of a surface of finite type. Wolpert showed that for strata whose closures do not intersect, there is a definite separation independent of the topology of the surface. We prove that the optimal value for this minimal separation is a constant $δ_{1,1}$ and show that it is realized exactly by strata whose nodes intersect once. We also give a nearly sharp estimate for $δ_{1,1}$ and give a lower bound …
A 2008 general overview on Weil-Petersson geometry is offered. A preliminary plan for the subsequent CBMS lectures at Central Connecticut State University is included. Mirzakhani's solution of Witten-Kontsevich is not included - this work essentially requires its own lectures. Lectures on Mirzakhani's Witten-Kontsevich were given at the 2011 Park City Mathematics Institute. Research on WP geometry coming after 2008 includes the Brock-Masur-Minsky second paper, Asymptotics of WP geodesics II: bounded geometry and unbounded entropy; the Burns-Masur-Wilkinson, The WP geodesic flow is ergodic; and…
We prove that any two finite-area non-compact hyperbolic Riemann surfaces S and T have finite covers that are arbitrarily close in the normalized Weil-Petersson metric, where we normalize by dividing the square of the metric by the area of the surface. In the case where T is the modular surface this reduces to showing that S has a finite cover with a proper ideal triangulation where most of the shear coordinates are small; we will construct such a cover out of a random collection of immersed ideal triangles in S.
In this paper we study the systole function along Weil-Petersson geodesics. We show that the square root of the systole function is uniformly Lipschitz on Teichmüller space endowed with the Weil-Petersson metric. As an application, we study the growth of the Weil-Petersson inradius of moduli space of Riemann surfaces of genus $g$ with $n$ punctures as a function of $g$ and $n$. We show that the Weil-Petersson inradius is comparable to $\sqrt{\ln{g}}$ with respect to $g$, and is comparable to $1$ with respect to $n$. Moreover, we also study the asymptotic behavior, as $g$ goes to infinity, of t…
Given a Riemann surface with boundary S, the lengths of a maximal system of disjoint simple geodesic arcs on S that start and end at the boundary of S perpendicularly are coordinates on the Teichmueller space T(S). We compute the Weil-Petersson Poisson structure on T(S) in this system of coordinates and we prove that it limits pointwise to the piecewise-linear Poisson structure defined by Kontsevich on the arc complex of S. As a byproduct of the proof, we obtain a formula for the first-order variation of the distance between two closed geodesics under Fenchel-Nielsen deformation.
Convexity properties of Weil-Petersson geodesics on the Teichmüller space of punctured Riemann surfaces are investigated. A normal form is presented for the Weil-Petersson Levi-Civita connection for pinched hyperbolic metrics. The normal form is used to establish approximation of geodesics in boundary spaces. Considerations are combined to establish convexity along Weil-Petersson geodesics of the functions the distance between horocycles for a hyperbolic metric.
In this paper we prove that the limit set of any Weil-Petersson geodesic ray with uniquely ergodic ending lamination is a single point in the Thurston compactification of Teichmüller space. On the other hand, we construct examples of Weil-Petersson geodesics with minimal nonuniquely ergodic ending laminations and limit set a circle in the Thurston compactification.
Let $S_g$ be a closed surface of genus $g$ and $\mathbb{M}_g$ be the moduli space of $S_g$ endowed with the Weil-Petersson metric. In this paper we investigate the Weil-Petersson curvatures of $\mathbb{M}_g$ for large genus $g$. First, we study the asymptotic behavior of the extremal Weil-Petersson holomorphic sectional curvatures at certain thick surfaces in $\mathbb{M}_g$ as $g \to \infty$. Then we prove two curvature properties on the whole space $\mathbb{M}_g$ as $g\to \infty$ in a probabilistic way.
A summary introduction of the Weil-Petersson metric space geometry is presented. Teichmueller space and its augmentation are described in terms of Fenchel-Nielsen coordinates. Formulas for the gradients and Hessians of geodesic-length functions are presented. Applications are considered. A description of the Weil-Petersson metric in Fenchel-Nielsen coordinates is presented. The Alexandrov tangent cone at points of the augmentation is described. A comparison dictionary is presented between the geometry of the space of flat tori and Teichmueller space with the Weil-Petersson metric.
An expansion is developed for the Weil-Petersson Riemann curvature tensor in the thin region of the Teichmüller and moduli spaces. The tensor is evaluated on the gradients of geodesic-lengths for disjoint geodesics. A precise lower bound for sectional curvature in terms of the surface systole is presented. The curvature tensor expansion is applied to establish continuity properties at the frontier strata of the augmented Teichmüller space. The curvature tensor has the asymptotic product structure already observed for the metric and covariant derivative. The product structure is combined with t…
In this paper we study the Weil-Petersson geometry of $\overline{\mathcal{M}_{g,n}}$, the compactified moduli space of Riemann surfaces with genus g and n marked points. The main goal of this paper is to understand the growth of the diameter of $\overline{\mathcal{M}_{g,n}}$ as a function of $g$ and $n$. We show that this diameter grows as $\sqrt{n}$ in $n$, and is bounded above by $C \sqrt{g}\log g$ in $g$ for some constant $C$. We also give a lower bound on the growth in $g$ of the diameter of $\overline{\mathcal{M}_{g,n}}$ in terms of an auxiliary function that measures the extent to which …
We introduce a method for constructing Weil-Petersson (WP) geodesics with certain behavior in the Teichmüller space. This allows us to study the itinerary of geodesics among the strata of the WP completion and its relation to subsurface projection coefficients of their end invariants. As an application we demonstrate the disparity between short curves in the universal curve over a WP geodesic and those of the associated hyperbolic $3$-manifold.
We give a new proof that the completion of the Weil-Petersson metric on Teichmüller space is Gromov-hyperbolic if the surface is a five-times punctured sphere or a twice-punctured torus. Our methods make use of the synthetic geometry of the Weil-Petersson metric.
On a convex body in a Euclidean space, we introduce a new variational formulation for its Funk metric, a Finsler metric compatible with the tautological Finsler structure of the convex body. We generalize the metric on Teichmuller spaces with the Weil-Petersson distance function. A set of similarities the resulting metric structure shares with Thurston's asymmetric metric is noted.
We find bounds for Weil-Petersson holomorphic sectional curvature, and the Weil-Petersson curvature operator in several regimes, that do not depend on the topology of the underlying surface. Among other results, we show that the minimal (most negative) eigenvalue of the curvature operator at any point in the Teichmüller space $\Teich(S_g)$ of a closed surface $S_g$ of genus $g$ is uniformly bounded away from zero. Restricting to a thick part of $\Teich(S_g)$, we show that the minimal eigenvalue is uniformly bounded below by an explicit constant which does not depend on the topology of the surf…
We highlight recent progresses in the study of the Weil-Petersson (WP) geometry of finite dimensional Teichmüller spaces. For recent progress on and the understanding of infinite dimensional Teichmüller spaces the reader is directed to the recent work of Teo-Takhtajan. As part of the highlight, we also present possible directions for future investigations.
In this paper we construct examples of Weil-Petersson geodesics with nonminimal ending laminations which have 1-dimensional limit sets in the Thurston compactification of Teichmüller space.
We prove that any mapping torus of a pseudo-Anosov mapping class with bounded normalized Weil-Petersson translation length contains a finite set of transverse and level closed curves, and drilling out this set of curves results in one of a finite number of cusped hyperbolic 3-manifolds. The number of manifolds in the finite list depends only on the bound for normalized translation length. We also prove a complementary result that explains the necessity of removing level curves by producing new estimates for the Weil-Petersson translation length of compositions of pseudo-Anosov mapping classes …
In this paper, we proved that the Weil-Petersson volume of Calabi-Yau moduli is a rational number. We also proved that the integrations of the invariants of the Ricci curvature of the Weil-Petersson metric with respect to the Weil-Petersson volume form are all rational numbers.
The Weil-Petersson metric for the moduli space of Riemann surfaces has negative sectional curvature. Surfaces represented in the complement of a compact set in the moduli space have short geodesics. At such surfaces the Weil-Petersson metric is approximately a product metric. An almost product metric has sections with almost vanishing curvature. We bound the sectional curvature away from zero in terms of the product of lengths of short geodesics on Riemann surfaces. We give examples and an expectation for the actual vanishing rate.
The sectional curvature of the Weil-Petersson metric on Teichmuller space is known to be negative. We show that this Weil-Petersson sectional curvature is not pinched from above by any negative constants, i.e., there is no negative upper bound.
In this paper we proved that the Weil-Petersson volume of the Chern class of any order over the moduli space of Calabi-Yau manifolds is a rational number. We also found the necessary and sufficient condition of the incompleteness of Weil-Petersson metric in several variables case.
In this paper, we define and study the Weil-Petersson geometry. Under the framework of the Weil-Petersson geometry, we study the Weil-Petersson metric and the Hodge metric. Among the other results, we represent the Hodge metric in terms of the Weil-Petersson metric and the Ricci curvature of the Weil-Petersson metric for Calabi-Yau fourfold moduli. We also prove that the Hodge volume of the moduli space is finite. Finally, we proved that the curvature of the Hodge metric is bounded if the Hodge metric is complete and the dimension of the moduli space is 1.
We consider the Riemann moduli space $\mathcal M_γ$ of conformal structures on a compact surface of genus $γ>1$ together with its Weil-Petersson metric $g_{\mathrm{WP}}$. Our main result is that $g_{\mathrm{WP}}$ admits a complete polyhomogeneous expansion in powers of the lengths of the short geodesics up to the singular divisors of the Deligne-Mumford compactification of $\mathcal M_γ$.
This paper contains two main results. The first is the existence of an equivariant Weil-Petersson geodesic in Teichmueller space for any choice of pseudo-Anosov mapping class. As a consequence one obtains a classification of the elements of the mapping class group as Weil-Petersson isometries which is parallel to the Thurston classification. The second result concerns the asymptotic behavior of these geodesics. It is shown that geodesics that are equivariant with respect to independent pseudo-Anosov's diverge. It follows that subgroups of the mapping class group which contain independent pseud…
We construct a Weil-Petersson geodesic completion of Teichmuller space through the formalism of Coxeter complex with the Teichmuller space as its non-linear non-homogeneous fundamental domain. We show that the metric and geodesic completions both satisfy a finite rank property, demonstrating a similarity with the non-compact symmetric spaces of semi-simple Lie groups.
To a complex projective structure $Σ$ on a surface, Thurston associates a locally convex pleated surface. We derive bounds on the geometry of both in terms of the norms $\|ϕ_Σ\|_\infty$ and $\|ϕ_Σ\|_2$ of the quadratic differential $ϕ_Σ$ of $Σ$ given by the Schwarzian derivative of the associated locally univalent map. We show that these give a unifying approach that generalizes a number of important, well known results for convex cocompact hyperbolic structures on 3-manifolds, including bounds on the Lipschitz constant for the nearest-point retraction and the length of the bending lamination.…
We present a view of the current understanding of the geometry of Weil-Petersson (WP) geodesics on the completion of the Teichmüller space. We sketch a collection of results by other authors and then proceed to develop the properties of the WP CAT(0) geometry. Our approach includes a simplified proof of the Masur-Wolf theorem, a classification of flats and of geodesic limits.
On the thick part of the moduli space of Riemann surfaces, where there is a positive lower bound of the systole of the surface, we show that all Weil-Petersson Riemannian curvatures are bounded, independent of the genus of the surface.
Harmonic extension of Weil-Petersson circle homeomorphisms
Institut de Recherche Mathématique Avancée, UMR 7501, Université de Strasbourg et CNRS（斯特拉斯堡大学数学高级研究所）；YMSC, Tsinghua University（清华大学高等研究院）；Beijing Institute of Mathematical Sciences and Applications（北京国际数学研究中心）
In this paper, we study the asymptotic geometry of Teichmuller space of Riemann surfaces and give bounds on the Weil-Petersson sectional curvature of Teichmuller space, in terms of the length of the shortest geodesic on the surface. This will also imply that the sectional curvature is not pinched from above or below by any negative constant.
Given a surface of higher genus, we will look at the Weil-Petersson completion of the Teichmuller space of the surface, and will study the isometric action of the mapping class group on it. The main observation is that the geometric characteristics of the setting bear strong similarities to the ones in semi-simple Lie group actions on noncompact symmetric spaces.
The universal Teichmüller space is an infinitely dimensional generalization of the classical Teichmüller space of Riemann surfaces. It carries a natural Hilbert structure, on which one can define a natural Riemannian metric, the Weil-Petersson metric. In this paper we investigate the Weil-Petersson Riemannian curvature operator $\tilde{Q}$ of the universal Teichmüller space with the Hilbert structure, and prove the following: (i) $\tilde{Q}$ is non-positive definite. (ii) $\tilde{Q}$ is a bounded operator. (iii) $\tilde{Q}$ is not compact; the set of the spectra of $\tilde{Q}$ is not discrete.…
We introduce a simple and very fast algorithm that computes Weil-Petersson metrics on moduli spaces of polarized Calabi-Yau manifolds. Also, by using Donaldson's quantization link between the infinite and finite dimensional G.I.T quotients that describe moduli spaces of varieties, we define a natural sequence of Kaehler metrics. We prove that the sequence converges to the Weil-Petersson metric. We also develop an algorithm that numerically approximates such metrics, and hence the Weil-Petersson metric itself. Explicit examples are provided on a family of Calabi-Yau Quintic hypersurfaces in CP^…
Inspired by mirror symmetry, we investigate some differential geometric aspects of the space of Bridgeland stability conditions on a Calabi-Yau triangulated category. The aim is to develop theory of Weil-Petersson geometry on the stringy Kähler moduli space. A few basic examples are studied. In particular, we identify our Weil-Petersson metric with the Bergman metric on a Siegel modular variety in the case of the self-product of an elliptic curve.
In a family of compact, canonically polarized, complex manifolds the first variation of the lengths of closed geodesics is computed. As an application, we show the coincidence of the Fenchel-Nielsen and Weil-Petersson symplectic forms on the Teichmueller spaces of compact Riemann surfaces in a purely geometric way. The method can also be applied to situations like moduli spaces of weighted punctured Riemann surfaces, where the methods of Kleinian groups are not available.
We shall show that $q$-semipositivity of the vector bundle $E$ over a Kähler total space $\mathcal X$ implies the Griffiths-semipositivity of the $q$-th direct image of $\mathcal O(K_{\mathcal X/B}\otimes E)$. As an application, we shall give a negative-curvature criterion for the generalized Weil-Petersson metric on the base manifold.
Over the past two decades the theory of the Weil-Petersson metric has been extended to general Teichmüller spaces of infinite type, including for example the universal Teichmüller space. In this paper we give a survey of the main results in the Weil-Petersson geometry of infinite-dimensional Teichmüller spaces. This includes the rigorous definition of complex Hilbert manifold structures, Kähler geometry and global analysis, and generalizations of the period mapping. We also discuss the motivations of the theory in representation theory and physics beginning in the 1980s. Some examples of the a…
This is a survey paper on the topic of Weil-Petersson geometry of Teichmuller spaces. Even though historically the subject has been developed as a branch of complex analysis, the treatment here is from the view-point of differential geometry, much influenced by the works of Eells, Earle, Fischer, Tromba and Wolpert over the several decades. The Weil-Petersson geometry has negative sectional curvature, and the main theme of this article is to exploit the convexity of the Weil-Petersson distance function induced by the negativity of the curvature, from Riemannian geometric approaches as well as …
Fix a number $g>1$, let $S$ be a close surface of genus $g$, and $Teich(S)$ be the Teichmüller space of $S$ endowed with the Weil-Petersson metric. In this paper we show that the Riemannian sectional curvature operator of $Teich(S)$ is non-positive definite. As an application we show that any twist harmonic map from rank-one hyperbolic spaces $H_{Q,m}=Sp(m,1)/Sp(m)\cdot Sp(1)$ or $H_{O,2}=F_{4}^{-20}/SO(9)$ into $Teich(S)$ is a constant.
We survey the renormalized volume of hyperbolic 3-manifolds, as a tool for Teichmuller theory, using simple differential geometry arguments to recover results sometimes first achieved by other means. One such application is McMullen's quasifuchsian (or more generally Kleinian) reciprocity, for which different arguments are proposed. Another is the fact that the renormalized volume of quasifuchsian (or more generally geometrically finite) hyperbolic 3-manifolds provides a Kahler potential for the Weil-Petersson metric on Teichmuller space. Yet another is the fact that the grafting map is symple…
