For a surface $S$ with $n$ marked points and fixed genus $g\geq2$, we prove that the logarithm of the minimal dilatation of a pseudo-Anosov homeomorphism of $S$ is on the order of $(\log n)/n$. This is in contrast with the cases of genus zero or one where the order is $1/n$.
This note gives a brief survey of the minimum dilatation problem for pseudo-Anosov mapping classes, and the first explicit train track description of an infinite family of pseudo-Anosov mapping classes with orientable stable foliations and the conjectural minimum dilatation for closed surfaces of even genus $g \ge 2$.
Answering a question of Farb-Leininger-Margalit, we give explicit lower bounds for the dilatations of pseudo-Anosov mapping classes lying in the kth term of the Johnson filtration of the mapping class group.
In this paper we study the minimum dilatation pseudo-Anosov mapping classes coming from fibrations over the circle of a single 3-manifold, the mapping torus for the "simplest pseudo-Anosov braid". The dilatations that arise include the minimum dilatations for orientable mapping classes for genus g=2,3,4,5,8 as well as Lanneau and Thiffeault's conjectural minima for orientable mapping classes, when g = 2,4 (mod 6). Our examples also show that the minimum dilatation for orientable mapping classes is strictly greater than the minimum dilatation for non-orientable ones when g = 4,6,8.
The dilatation of a pseudo-Anosov braid is a conjugacy invariant. In this paper, we study the dilatation of a special family of pseudo-Anosov braids. We prove an inductive formula to compute their dilatation, a monotonicity and an asymptotic behavior of the dilatation for this family of braids. We also give an example of a family of pseudo-Anosov braids with arbitrarily small dilatation such that the mapping torus obtained from such braid has 2 cusps and has an arbitrarily large volume.
This paper describes a family of pseudo-Anosov braids with small dilatation. The smallest dilatations occurring for braids with 3, 4 and 5 strands appear in this family. A pseudo-Anosov braid with 2g+1 strands determines a hyperelliptic mapping class with the same dilatation on a genus-g surface. Penner showed that logarithms of least dilatations of pseudo-Anosov maps on a genus-g surface grow asymptotically with the genus like 1/g, and gave explicit examples of mapping classes with dilatations bounded above by log 11/g. Bauer later improved this bound to log 6/g. The braids in this paper give…
A relation between the dilatation of pseudo-Anosov braids and fixed point theory was studied by Ivanov. In this paper we reveal a new relationship between the above two subjects by showing a formula for the dilatation of pseudo-Anosov braids by means of the representations of braid groups due to B. Jiang and H. Zheng.
Let $S_n$ be a punctured Riemann spheres $\mathbf{S}^2\backslash \{x_1,..., x_n\}$. In this paper, we investigate pseudo-Anosov maps on $S_n$ that are isotopic to the identity on $S_n\cup \{x_n\}$ and have the smallest possible dilatations. We show that those maps cannot be obtained from Thurston's construction (that is the products of two Dehn twists). We also prove that those pseudo-Anosov maps $f$ on $S_n$ with the minimum dilatations can never define a trivial mapping class as any puncture $x_i$ of $S_n$ is filled in. The main tool is to give both lower and upper bounds estimations for dil…
This paper concerns a family of pseudo-Anosov braids with dilatations arbitrarily close to one. The associated graph maps and train tracks have stable "star-like" shapes, and the characteristic polynomials of their transition matrices form Salem-Boyd sequences. These examples show that the logarithms of least dilatations of pseudo-Anosov braids on $2g+1$ strands are bounded above by $\log(2 + \sqrt{3})/g$. It follows that the asymptotic behavior of least dilatations of pseudo-Anosov, hyperelliptic surface homeomorphisms is identical to that found by Penner for general surface homeomorphisms. T…
In this paper, we give sufficient conditions for a Perron number, given as the leading eigenvalue of an aperiodic matrix, to be a pseudo-Anosov dilatation of a compact surface. We give an explicit construction of the surface and the map when the sufficient condition is met.
For a pseudo-Anosov homeomorphism $f$ on a closed surface of genus $g\geq 2$, for which the entropy is on the order $\frac{1}{g}$ (the lowest possible order), Farb-Leininger-Margalit showed that the volume of the mapping torus is bounded, independent of $g$. We show that the analogous result fails for a surface of fixed genus $g$ with $n$ punctures, by constructing pseudo-Anosov homeomorphism with entropy of the minimal order $\frac{\log n}{n}$, and volume tending to infinity.
We find the minimum dilatation of pseudo-Anosov homeomorphisms that stabilize an orientable foliation on surfaces of genus three, four, or five, and provide a lower bound for genus six to eight. Our technique also simplifies Cho and Ham's proof of the least dilatation of pseudo-Anosov homeomorphisms on a genus two surface. For genus g=2 to 5, the mimimum dilatation is the smallest Salem number for polynomials of degree 2g.
It has been known since 1981 that if one fixes an orientable surface $S$ of genus $g$, then there is a real number $λ_{min,g} > 1$ that is the dilatation of a pA diffeomorphism of $S$, and every other pA diffeomorphism of $S$ has dilatation $\geq λ_{min,g}$. We will show how a little-known theorem about digraphs gives some insight into $λ_{min,g}$.
The minimum dilatation of pseudo-Anosov 5-braids is shown to be the largest zero $λ_5 \approx 1.72208$ of $x^4 - x^3 - x^2 - x + 1$ which is attained by $σ_1σ_2σ_3σ_4σ_1σ_2$.
The main result of this paper is a universal finiteness theorem for the set of all small dilatation pseudo-Anosov homeomorphisms, ranging over all surfaces. More precisely, we consider pseudo-Anosovs F:S to S with |chi(S)| log(lambda(F)) bounded above by some constant, and we prove that, after puncturing the surfaces at the singular points of the stable foliations, the resulting set of mapping tori is finite. Said differently, there is a finite set of fibered hyperbolic 3-manifolds so that all small dilatation pseudo-Anosovs occur as the monodromy of a Dehn filling on one of the 3-manifolds in…
A filling curve $γ$ on a based surface $S$ determines a pseudo-Anosov homeomorphism $P(γ)$ of $S$ via the process of "point-pushing along $γ$." We consider the relationship between the self-intersection number $i(γ)$ of $γ$ and the dilatation of $P(γ)$; our main result is that the dilatation is bounded between $(i(γ)+1)^{1/5}$ and $9^{i(γ)}$. We also bound the least dilatation of any pseudo-Anosov in the point-pushing subgroup of a closed surface and prove that this number tends to infinity with genus. Lastly, we investigate the minimal entropy of any pseudo-Anosov homeomorphism obtained by pu…
Let $δ_{g,n}$ be the minimal dilatation of pseudo-Anosovs defined on an orientable surface of genus $g$ with $n$ punctures. Tsai proved that for any fixed $g \ge 2$, the logarithm of the minimal dilatation $\log δ_{g,n}$ is on the order of $\frac{\log n}{n}$. The main result of this paper is that if $2g+1$ is relatively prime to $s$ or $s+1$ for each $0 \le s \le g$, then $$\limsup_{n \to \infty} \frac{n \log δ_{g,n}}{\log n} \le 2.$$
The theme of this paper is that algebraic complexity implies dynamical complexity for pseudo-Anosov homeomorphisms of a closed surface S_g of genus g. Penner proved that the logarithm of the minimal dilatation for a pseudo-Anosov homeomorphism of S_g tends to zero at the rate 1/g. We consider here the smallest dilatation of any pseudo-Anosov homeomorphism of S_g acting trivially on Gamma/Gamma_k, the quotient of Gamma = pi_1(S_g) by the k-th term of its lower central series, k > 0. In contrast to Penner's asymptotics, we prove that this minimal dilatation is bounded above and below, independen…
In this note, we deduce a partial answer to the question in the title. In particular, we show that asymptotically almost all bi-Perron algebraic unit whose characteristic polynomial has degree at most $2n$ do not correspond to dilatations of pseudo-Anosov maps on a closed orientable surface of genus $n$ for $n\geq 10$. As an application of the argument, we also obtain a statement on the number of closed geodesics of the same length in the moduli space of area one abelian differentials for low genus cases.
We consider the hyperelliptic handlebody group on a closed surface of genus $g$. This is the subgroup of the mapping class group on a closed surface of genus $g$ consisting of isotopy classes of homeomorphisms on the surface that commute with some fixed hyperelliptic involution and that extend to homeomorphisms on the handlebody. We prove that the logarithm of the minimal dilatation (i.e, the minimal entropy) of all pseudo-Anosov elements in the hyperelliptic handlebody group of genus $g$ is comparable to $1/g$. This means that the asymptotic behavior of the minimal pseudo-Anosov dilatation of…
For any nonorientable closed surface, we determine the minimal dilatation among pseudo-Anosov mapping classes arising from Penner's construction. We deduce that the sequence of minimal Penner dilatations has exactly two accumulation points, in contrast to the case of orientable surfaces where there is only one accumulation point. One of our key techniques is representing pseudo-Anosov dilatations as roots of Alexander polynomials of fibred links and comparing dilatations using the skein relation for Alexander polynomials.
We construct sequences of pseudo-Anosov mapping classes whose dilatations behave asymptotically like the inverse of the Euler characteristic of the surface they are defined on. These sequences are used to show that if the genus, g, and punctures, n, of a surface are related by a rational ray g=rn then the minimal dilatations behave asymptotically like the inverse of the Euler characteristic.
This paper concerns the set $\hat{\mathcal{M}}$ of pseudo-Anosovs which occur as monodromies of fibrations on manifolds obtained from the magic 3-manifold $N$ by Dehn filling three cusps with a mild restriction. We prove that for each $g$ (resp. $g \not\equiv 0 \pmod{6}$), the minimum among dilatations of elements (resp. elements with orientable invariant foliations) of $\hat{\mathcal{M}}$ defined on a closed surface $\varSigma_g$ of genus $g$ is achieved by the monodromy of some $\varSigma_g$-bundle over the circle obtained from $N(\tfrac{3}{-2})$ or $N(\tfrac{1}{-2})$ by Dehn filling two cus…
We prove that the dilatation of any pseudo-Anosov homeomorphism on a translation surface that belong to a hyperelliptic component is bounded from below uniformly by sqrt{2}. This is in contrast to Penner's asymptotic. Penner proved that the logarithm of the least dilatation of any pseudo-Anosov homeomorphism on a surface of genus g tends to zero at rate 1/g (as g goes to infinity). We also show that our uniform lower bound sqrt{2} is sharp. More precisely the least dilatation of a pseudo-Anosov on a genus g>1 translation surface in a hyperelliptic component belongs to the interval ]sqrt{2},sqr…
For each pseudo-Anosov map $ϕ$ on surface $S$, we will associate it with a $\mathbb{Q}$-submodule of $\mathbb{R}$, denoted by $A(S,ϕ)$. $A(S,ϕ)$ is defined by an interaction between the Thurston norm and dilatation of pseudo-Anosov maps. We will develop a few nice properties of $A(S,ϕ)$ and give a few examples to show that $A(S,ϕ)$ is a nontrivial invariant. These nontrivial examples give an answer to a question asked by McMullen: the minimal point of the restriction of the dilatation function on fibered face need not be a rational point.
We study the minimal dilatation of pseudo-Anosov pure surface braids and provide upper and lower bounds as a function of genus and the number of punctures. For a fixed number of punctures, these bounds tend to infinity as the genus does. We also bound the dilatation of pseudo-Anosov pure surface braids away from zero and give a constant upper bound in the case of a sufficient number of punctures.
We prove a new lower bound for the dilatation of an arbitrary pseudo-Anosov map on a surface of genus g with n punctures. Our bound improves the former super-exponential dependence on the genus by a polynomial dependence.
We find the minimum dilatation of pseudo-Anosov braids on n-punctured discs for 3 <= n <= 8. This covers the results of Song-Ko-Los (n=4) and Ham-Song (n=5). The proof is elementary, and uses the Lefschetz formula.
Let $δ_g$ be the minimal dilatation for pseudo-Anosovs on a closed surface $Σ_g$ of genus $g$ and let $δ_g^+$ be the minimal dilatation for pseudo-Anosovs on $Σ_g$ with orientable invariant foliations. This paper concerns the pseudo-Anosovs which occur as the monodromies on closed fibers for Dehn fillings of $N(r)$ for each $r \in \{-3/2, -1/2, 2\}$ of the magic manifold $N$. The manifold $N(-3/2)$ is homeomorphic to the Whitehead sister link exterior. We consider the set $Λ_g(r)$ (resp. $Λ_g^+(r)$) which consists of the dilatations of all monodromies (resp. monodromies having orientable invar…
We investigate a phenomenon observed by W. Thurston wherein one constructs a pseudo-Anosov homeomorphism on the limit set of a certain lift of a piecewise-linear expanding interval map. We reconcile this construction with a special subclass of generalized pseudo-Anosovs, first defined by de Carvalho. From there we classify the circumstances under which this construction produces a pseudo-Anosov. As an application, we produce for each $g \geq 1$ a pseudo-Anosov $ϕ_g$ on the surface of genus $g$ that preserves an algebraically primitive translation structure and whose dilatation $λ_g$ is a Salem…
We show that an orientable pseudo-Anosov homeomorphism has vanishing Sah-Arnoux-Fathi invariant if and only if the minimal polynomial of its dilatation is not reciprocal. We relate this to works of Margalit-Spallone and Birman, Brinkmann and Kawamuro. Mainly, we use Veech's construction of pseudo-Anosov maps to give explicit pseudo-Anosov maps of vanishing Sah-Arnoux-Fathi invariant. In particular, we give new infinite families of such maps in genus 3.
An Agol cycle is a complete invariant of the conjugacy class of a pseudo-Anosov mapping class. We study necessary and sufficient conditions for equivalent Agol cycles of pseudo-Anosov 3-braids.
Since the set of volumes of hyperbolic 3-manifolds is well ordered, for each fixed g there is a genus-g surface bundle over the circle of minimal volume. Here, we introduce an explicit family of genus-g bundles which we conjecture are the unique such manifolds of minimal volume. Conditional on a very plausible assumption, we prove that this is indeed the case when g is large. The proof combines a soft geometric limit argument with a detailed Neumann-Zagier asymptotic formula for the volumes of Dehn fillings. Our examples are all Dehn fillings on the sibling of the Whitehead manifold, and we al…
We investigate the structure of the characteristic polynomial det(xI-T) of a transition matrix T that is associated to a train track representative of a pseudo-Anosov map [F] acting on a surface. As a result we obtain three new polynomial invariants of [F], one of them being the product of the other two, and all three being divisors of det(xI-T). The degrees of the new polynomials are invariants of [F ] and we give simple formulas for computing them by a counting argument from an invariant train track. We give examples of genus 2 pseudo-Anosov maps having the same dilatation, and use our invar…
For every irreducible automorphism $ϕ\in\text{SL}_3({\mathbb Z})$ of the $3$-torus, for which the product of the expanding eigenvalues is positive, we construct a pseudo-Anosov mapping $f$ of an associated surface, semi-conjugate and almost-isomorphic to $ϕ$, whose stretch factor is the product of the expanding eigenvalues of $ϕ$. This shows that any norm-$1$ cubic Pisot number occurs as the stretch factor of a pseudo-Anosov mapping, proving a conjecture of Fried in degree $3$. A similar construction works for the $4$-torus on condition that $ϕ$ has exactly two eigenvalues outside the unit cir…
We show that the kernel of $Burau(4) \otimes Z_p$, the reduced Burau representation with coefficients in $Z_p$ of the 4-braid group $B_4$, consists only of pseudo-Anosov braids.
We prove that pseudo-Anosov mapping classes are generic with respect to certain notions of genericity reflecting that we are dealing with mapping classes.
We show that, for any (symmetric) finite generating set of the Torelli group of a closed surface, the probability that a random word is not pseudo-Anosov decays exponentially in terms of the length of the word.
In this paper we provide a negative answer to a question of Farb about the relation between the algebraic degree of the stretch factor of a pseudo-Anosov homeomorphism and the genus of the surface on which it is defined.
Let $S$ be a closed Riemann surface of genus $p>1$ with one point removed. In this paper, we identify those point-pushing pseudo-Anosov maps on $S$ that preserve at least one bi-infinite geodesic in the curve complex.
We show that Galois conjugates of stretch factors of pseudo-Anosov mapping classes arising from Penner's construction lie off the unit circle. As a consequence, we show that for all but a few exceptional surfaces, there are examples of pseudo-Anosov mapping classes so that no power of them arises from Penner's construction. This resolves a conjecture of Penner.
In this note, we show that, if a pseudo-Anosov map $ϕ:S\to S$ admits a finite cover whose action on the first homology has spectral radius greater than $1$, then the monodromy of any fibered structure of any finite cover of the mapping torus $M_ϕ$ has the same property.
We introduce a new perspective on a procedure for generating pseudo-Anosov homemorphisms from postcritically finite interval maps. The central idea is the realization of a tree structure on one such family of pseudo-Anosovs: individual systems, represented by the rational number measuring their rotation at infinity, are the vertices of the tree, while the edges encode dynamical relations between them. We also deepen the dictionary between one-, two- and three-dimensional invariants associated with these systems.
Biringer, Johnson, and Minsky showed that a pseudo-Anosov map on a boundary component of an irreducible 3-manifold has a power that partially extends to the interior if and only if the (un)stable laminations of $f$ is an $\mathbb{R}$-projective limit of meridians. We prove that the power required for a pseudo-Anosov map to partially extend is not universally bounded. We construct a family of pseudo-Anosov maps $f_i$ for all $i=1,2...$ on a boundary component of a family of irreducible 3-manifolds $M_i$ such that $f_i^i$ partially extends to the interior of $M_i$ but $f_i^j$ does not for $j<i$.
We determine the smallest stretch factor among pseudo-Anosov maps with an orientable invariant foliation on the closed nonorientable surfaces of genus 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18 and 20. We also determine the smallest stretch factor of an orientation-reversing pseudo-Anosov map with orientable invariant foliations on the closed orientable surfaces of genus 1, 3, 5, 7, 9 and 11. As a byproduct, we obtain that the stretch factor of a pseudo-Anosov map on a nonorientable surface or an orientation-reversing pseudo-Anosov map on an orientable surface does not have Galois conjugates on the uni…
We compute the growth series and the growth functions of reducible and pseudo-Anosov elements of the pure mapping class group of the sphere with four holes with respect to a certain generating set. We prove that the ratio of the number of pseudo-Anosov elements to that of all elements in a ball with center at the identity tends to one as the radius of the ball tends to infinity.
This paper analyzes commensurability of the class of surface automorphism generated by two Dehn multitwists. We show pairwise noncommensurability between several classes arising from canonical curve configurations. In addition, we consider the Kenyon-Smillie invariant J of flat surfaces in this setting. We also introduce a general construction of infinite classes of commensurable pseudo-Anosov homeomorphisms.
The invariant measured foliations of a pseudo-Anosov homeomorphism induce a natural (singular) Sol structure on mapping tori of surfaces with pseudo-Anosov monodromy. We show that when the pseudo-Anosov $ϕ:S\rightarrow S$ has orientable foliations and does not have 1 as an eigenvalue of the induced cohomology action on the closed surface, then the Sol structure can be deformed to nearby cone hyperbolic structures, in the sense of projective structures. The cone angles can be chosen to be decreasing from multiples of $2π$.
We show that a pseudo-Anosov map on a boundary component of an irreducible 3-manifold has a power that partially extends to the interior if and only if its (un)stable lamination is a projective limit of meridians. The proof is through 3-dimensional hyperbolic geometry, and involves an investigation of algebraic limits of convex cocompact compression bodies.
Given a pair of curves C_1 and C_2 on a hyperbolic surface F, when does there exist a pseudo-Anosov map sending one to another? More generally, one may ask the same question for C_i to be sets of disjoint simple closed curves. We will give necessary and sufficient conditions for the existence of such maps.
Given any generating set of any pseudo-Anosov-containing subgroup of the mapping class group of a surface, we construct a pseudo-Anosov with word length bounded by a constant depending only on the surface. More generally, in any subgroup G we find an element f with the property that the minimal subsurface supporting a power of f is as large as possible for elements of G; the same constant bounds the word length of f. Along the way we find new examples of convex cocompact free subgroups of the mapping class group.
We show how to construct an ideal triangulation of a mapping torus of a pseudo-Anosov map punctured along the singular fibers. This gives rise to a new conjugacy invariant of mapping classes, and a new proof of a theorem of Farb-Leininger-Margalit. The approach in this paper is based on ideas of Hamenstadt.