Schmithüsen proved in 2004 that the Veech group of an origami is closely related to a subgroup of the automorphism group of the free group $F_2$. This result is significant in the sense that the framework of approachable Veech groups is greatly extended. In this paper, we continue the analysis and consider what kind of settings of flat surfaces allow Veech groups to be characterized combinatorially like origamis. We show that elements in the Veech group of a flat surface with two finite Jenkins-Strebel directions are characterized to allow a concurrence between two `origamis' defined by geodesics in the surface. In the proof we use an observation presented by Earle and Gardiner that a flat surface with two finite Jenkins-Strebel directions is decomposed into a finite number of parallelograms and is proved to be of finite analytic type. Using our results we can decide whether a matrix belongs to the Veech group for various kinds of flat surfaces of finite analytic type.
In this century, a square-tiled translation surface (an origami) is intensively studied as an object with special properties of its translation structure and its $SL(2,\mathbb{R})$-orbit embedded in the moduli space. We generalize this concept in the language of flat surfaces appearing naturally in the Teichmüller theory. We study the combinatorial structure of origamis and show that a certain system of linear equations realizes the flat surface in which rectangles of specified moduli replace squares of an origami. This construction gives a parametrization of the family of flat surfaces with t…
As main result we show that for each g > 1 there is some translation surface of genus g whose Veech group is a non congruence subgroup of SL(2,Z). We use origamis/square-tiled surfaces to produce our examples. The article is divided into two parts: In the first part we introduce translation surfaces, origamis, Veech groups and Teichmueller curves and show for two origamis in genus 2 that their Veech groups are non congruence groups; in the second part we provide a technique that produces sequences of origamis whose Veech groups are decreasing. This is used to prove the main result.
We study "how far away" a finite index subgroup G of SL(2,Z) is from being a congruence group. For this we define its deficiency of being a congruence group. We show that the index of the image of G in SL(2,Z/nZ) is biggest, if n is the general Wohlfahrt level. We furthermore show that the Veech groups of origamis (or square-tiled surfaces) in the stratum H(2) are far away from being congruence groups and that in each genus one finds an infinite family of origamis such that they are "as far as possible" from being a congruence group.
Veech groups are an important tool to examine translation surfaces and related mathematical objects. Origamis, also known as square-tiled surfaces, form an interesting class of translation surfaces with finite index subgroups of SL(2,Z) as Veech groups. We study when Veech groups of origamis with maximal symmetry group are totally non-congruence groups, i.e., when they surject onto SL(2, Z/nZ) for each natural number n. For this, we use a result of Schlage-Puchta and Weitze-Schmithüsen to deduce sufficient conditions on the deck transformation group of the origami. More precisely, we show that…
In this paper, we construct new examples of Veech groups by extending Schmithusen's method for calculating Veech groups of origamis to Veech groups of unramified finite coverings of regular 2n-gons. We calculate the Veech groups of certain Abelian coverings of regular 2n-gons by using an algebraic method.
Veech groups are discrete subgroups of SL(2, R) which play an important role in the theory of translation surfaces. For a special class of translation surfaces called origamis or square-tiled surfaces their Veech groups are subgroups of finite index of SL(2, Z). We show that each stratum of the space of translation surfaces contains infinitely many origamis whose Veech group is a totally non congruence group, i.e. it surjects to SL(2, Z/nZ) for any n.
We consider a rather special class of translation surfaces (called M-Origamis in this work) that are obtained from dessins by a construction introduced by Martin Möller. We give a new proof with a more combinatorial flavour of Möller's theorem that $\mathrm{Gal}(\overline{\mathbb{Q}}/\mathbb{Q})$ acts faithfully on the Teichmüller curves of M-Origamis and extend his result by investigating the Galois action in greater detail. We determine the Strebel directions and corresponding cylinder decompositions of an M-Origami, as well as its Veech group, which contains the modular group $Γ(2)$ and is …
The first part of this paper is a survey on Teichmueller curves and Veech groups, with emphasis on the special case of origamis where much stronger tools for the investigation are available than in the general case. In the second part we study a particular configuration of origami curves in genus 3: A "base" curve is intersected by infinitely many "transversal" curves. We determine their Veech groups and the closure of their locus in M_3, which turns out to be a three dimensional variety and the image of a certain Hurwitz space in M_3.
It is known that every finite group can be represented as the full group of automorphisms of a suitable compact origami. In this paper, we provide a short argument to note that the same holds for any countable group by considering origamis on the Loch Ness monster.
Given a two-generated group of prime-power order, we investigate the singularities of origamis whose deck group acts transitively and is isomorphic to the given group. Geometric and group-theoretic ideas are used to classify the possible strata, depending on the prime-power order. We then show that for many interesting known families of two-generated groups of prime-power order, including all regular, or powerful ones, or those of maximal class, each group admits only one possible stratum. However, we also construct examples of two-generated groups of prime-power order which do not determine a…
We study the action of the Veech group of square-tiled surfaces of genus two on homology. This action defines the homology Veech group which is a subgroup of $\textrm{SL}_2(\mathcal{O}_D)$ where $\mathcal{O}_D$ is a quadratic order of square discriminant. Extending a result of Weitze-Schmithüsen we show that also the homology Veech group is a totally non-congruence subgroup with exceptions stemming only from the prime ideals lying above 2. While Weitze-Schmithüsen's result for Veech groups is asymmetric with respect to the spin structure our use of the homology Veech group yields a completely …
Veech groups uniformize Teichmüller geodesic curves in Riemann moduli space. Recently, examples of infinitely generated Veech groups have been given. We show that these can even have infinitely many cusps and infinitely many infinite ends. We further show that examples exist for which each direction of an infinite end is the limit of directions of inequivalent infinite ends.
We show that every countable subgroup $G<\rm GL_+(2,\mathbb{R})$ without contracting elements is the Veech group of a tame translation surface $S$ of infinite genus, for infinitely many different topological types of $S$. Moreover, we prove that as long as every end has genus, there are no restrictions on the topological type of $S$ to realise all possible uncountable Veech groups.
In this paper we consider the symmetries of triangulable half-dilation structures on the sphere with four singularities. We show that all such surfaces can be produced by a tetrahedral construction. Using this construction, we calculate each such surface's symmetry group in $\operatorname{PSL}(2, \mathbb{R})$ called the Veech group.
Flat surfaces that correspond to meromorphic $1$-forms or to meromorphic quadratic differentials containing poles of order two and higher are surfaces of infinite area. We classify groups that appear as Veech groups of translation surfaces with poles. We characterize those surfaces such that their $GL^{+}(2,\mathbb{R})$-orbit or their $SL(2,\mathbb{R})$-orbit is closed. Finally, we provide a way to determine the Veech group for a typical infinite surface in a given chamber of a stratum.
We study Veech groups of covering surfaces of primitive translation surfaces. Therefore we define congruence subgroups in Veech groups of primitive translation surfaces using their action on the homology with entries in $\mathbb{Z}/a\mathbb{Z}$. We introduce a congruence level definition and a property of a primitive translation surface which we call property $(\star)$. It guarantees that partition stabilising congruence subgroups of this level occur as Veech group of a translation covering. Each primitive surface with exactly one singular point has property $(\star)$ in every level. We additi…
We study the Veech group of an origami, i.e. of a translation surface, tessellated by parallelograms. We show that it is isomorphic to the image of a certain subgroup of Aut(F_2) in SL_2(Z) = Out^+(F_2). Based on this we present an algorithm that determines the Veech group.
These notes discuss an infinite translation surface, introduced by Chamanara. We review his proof that the Veech group is a non-elementary Fuchsian group of the second kind which is generated by two parabolic elements.
We prove that a ``bouillabaisse'' surface (translation surface which has two transverse parabolic elements) has totally real trace field. As a corollary, non trivial Veech groups which have no parabolic elements do exist. The proof follows Veech's viewpoint on Thurston's construction of pseudo-Anosov diffeomorphisms.
These are the notes of a talk that I gave at the Weihnachtsworkshop 2017 in Saarbrücken. It answered a question by Hooper and Treviño on the Veech group of the golden ladder, a translation surface of infinite type.
We introduce a class of objects which we call 'affine surfaces'. These provide families of foliations on surfaces whose dynamics we are interested in. We present and analyze a couple of examples, and we define concepts related to these in order to motivate several questions and open problems. In particular we generalise the notion of Veech group to affine surfaces, and we prove a structure result about these Veech groups.
We prove the existence of Veech groups having a critical exponent strictly greater than any elementary Fuchsian group (i.e. $>\frac{1}{2}$) but strictly smaller than any lattice (i.e. $<1$). More precisely, every affine covering of a primitive L-shaped Veech surface $X$ ramified over the singularity and a non-periodic connection point $P\in X$ has such a Veech group. Hubert and Schmidt showed that these Veech groups are infinitely generated and of the first kind. We use a result of Roblin and Tapie which connects the critical exponent of the Veech group of the covering with the Cheeger constan…
Periodic points are points on Veech surfaces, whose orbit under the group of affine diffeomorphisms is finite. We characterise those points as being torsion points if the Veech surfaces is suitably mapped to its Jacobian or an appropriate factor thereof. For a primitive Veech surface in genus two we show that the only periodic points are the Weierstrass points and the singularities. Our main tool is the Hodge-theoretic characterisation of Teichmueller curves. We deduce from it a finiteness result for the Mordell-Weil group of the family of Jacobians over a Teichmueller curve.
In this paper we prove a combination theorem for Veech subgroups of the mapping class group analogous to the first Klein-Maskit combination theorem for Kleinian groups in which two Fuchsian subgroups are amalgamated along a parabolic subgroup. As a corollary, we construct subgroups of the mapping class group (for all genus at least 2), which are isomorphic to non-abelian closed surface groups in which all but one conjugacy class (up to powers) is pseudo-Anosov.
Let $S$ be an infinite-type surface and $p\in S$. We show that the Thurston-Veech construction for pseudo-Anosov elements, adapted for infinite-type surfaces, produces infinitely many loxodromic elements for the action of $Mod(S;p)$ on the loop graph $L(S;p)$ that do not leave any finite-type subsurface $S'\subset S$ invariant. Moreover, in the language of Bavard-Walker, Thurston-Veech's construction produces loxodromic elements of any weight. As a consequence of Bavard and Walker's work, any subgroup of $Mod(S;p)$ containing two "Thurston-Veech loxodromics" of different weight has an infinite…
We compute higher moments of the Siegel--Veech transform over quotients of $SL(2,\mathbb{R})$ by the Hecke triangle groups. After fixing a normalization of the Haar measure on $SL(2,\mathbb{R})$ we use geometric results and linear algebra to create explicit integration formulas which give information about densities of $k$-tuples of vectors in discrete subsets of $\mathbb{R}^2$ which arise as orbits of Hecke triangle groups. This generalizes work of W.~Schmidt on the variance of the Siegel transform over $SL(2,\mathbb{R})/SL(2,\mathbb{Z})$.
For each stratum of the space of translation surfaces, we introduce an infinite translation surface containing in an appropriate manner a copy of every translation surface of the stratum. Given a translation surface $(X, ω)$ in the stratum, a matrix is in its Veech group $\mathrm{SL}(X,ω)$ if and only if an associated affine automorphism of the infinite surface sends each of a finite set, the ``marked" {\em Voronoi staples}, arising from orientation-paired segments appropriately perpendicular to Voronoi 1-cells, to another pair of orientation-paired ``marked" segments. We prove a result of ind…
We define an infinite series of translation coverings of Veech's double-n-gon for odd n greater or equal to 5 which share the same Veech group. Additionally we give an infinite series of translation coverings with constant Veech group of a regular n-gon for even n greater or equal to 8. These families give rise to explicit examples of infinite translation surfaces with lattice Veech group.
A nice trick for studying the billiard flow in a rational polygon is to unfold the polygon along the trajectories. This gives rise to a translation or half-translation surface tiled by the original polygon, or equivalently an Abelian or quadratic differential. Veech surfaces are a special class of translation surfaces with a large group of affine automorphisms, and interesting dynamical properties. The first examples of Veech surfaces came from rational billiards. We first present the mathematical objects and fix some vocabulary and notation. Then we review known results about Veech surfaces a…
Dilation surfaces are generalizations of translation surfaces where the geometric structure is modelled on the complex plane up to affine maps whose linear part is real. They are the geometric framework to study suspensions of affine interval exchange maps. However, though the $SL(2,\mathbb{R})$-action is ergodic in connected components of strata of translation surfaces, there may be mutually disjoint $SL(2,\mathbb{R})$-invariant open subsets in components of dilation surfaces. A first distinction is between triangulable and non-triangulable dilation surfaces. For non-triangulable surfaces, th…
For every half-translation surface with marked points $(M,Σ)$, we construct an associated tessellation $Π(M,Σ)$ of the Poincaré upper half plane whose tiles have finitely many sides and area at most $π$. The tessellation $Π(M,Σ)$ is equivariant with respect to the action of $\mathrm{PSL}(2,\mathbb{R})$, and invariant with respect to (half-)translation covering. In the case $(M,Σ)$ is the torus $\mathbb{C}/\mathbb{Z}^2$ with a one marked point, $Π(\mathbb{C}/\mathbb{Z}^2,\{0\})$ coincides with the iso-Delaunay tessellation introduced by Veech as both tessellations give the Farey tessellation. A…
This paper deals with Prym eigenforms which are introduced previously by McMullen. We prove several results on the directional flow on those surfaces, related to complete periodicity (introduced by Calta). More precisely we show that any homological direction is algebraically periodic, and any direction of a regular closed geodesic is a completely periodic direction. As a consequence we draw that the limit set of the Veech group of every Prym eigenform in some Prym loci of genus 3,4, and 5 is either empty, one point, or the full circle at infinity. We also construct new examples of translation…
We study the congruence problem for subgroups of the modular group that appear as Veech groups of square-tiled surfaces in the minimal stratum of abelian differentials of genus two.
For a Veech surface (x,ω), we characterize subspaces of X^n, invariant under the diagonal action of the affine group of X. We prove that non-arithmetic Veech surfaces have only finitely many invariant subspaces of very particular shape (in any dimension). Among other consequences we find copies of (X,ω) embedded in the moduli-space of translation surfaces. We study illumination problems in (pre-)lattice surfaces. For (X,ω) prelattice we prove the at most countableness of points non-illuminable from any x in X. Applying our results on invariant subspaces we prove the finiteness of these sets wh…
We express the Masur-Veech volume and the area Siegel-Veech constant of the moduli space $\mathcal{Q}_{g,n}$ of genus $g$ meromorphic quadratic differentials with $n$ simple poles as polynomials in the intersection numbers of $ψ$-classes with explicit rational coefficients. The formulae obtained in this article result from lattice point counts involving the Kontsevich volume polynomials that also appear in Mirzakhani's recursion for the Weil-Petersson volumes of the moduli spaces of bordered hyperbolic surfaces with geodesic boundaries. A similar formula for the Masur-Veech volume (though with…
We explicitly compute the limiting gap distribution for slopes of saddle connections on the flat surface associated to the regular octagon with opposite sides identified. This is the first such computation where the Veech group of the translation surface has multiple cusps. We also show how to parametrize a Poincaré section for the horocycle flow on $SL(2,\mathbb{R})/SL(X,ω)$ associated to an arbitrary Veech surface $(X, ω)$. As a corollary, we show that the associated gap distribution is piecewise real analytic.
Realizing groups as symmetries of infinite translation surfaces
Universidad Nacional de Colombia（哥伦比亚国立大学）；Heidelberg University（海德堡大学）；Bowdoin College（鲍登学院）；Centro de Ciencias Matemáticas, UNAM（墨西哥国立自治大学数学科学中心）；Universität des Saarlandes（萨尔兰大学）
Let $S$ be a (topological) compact closed surface of genus two. We associate to each translation surface $(X,ω) \in \mathcal{H}(2)\sqcup\mathcal{H}(1,1)$ a subgraph $\hat{\mathcal{C}}_{\rm cyl}$ of the curve graph of $S$. The vertices of this subgraph are free homotopy classes of curves which can be represented either by a simple closed geodesic, or by a concatenation of two parallel saddle connections (satisfying some additional properties) on $X$. The subgraph $\hat{\mathcal{C}}_{\rm cyl}$ is by definition $\mathrm{GL}^+(2,\mathbb{R})$-invariant. Hence, it may be seen as the image of the cor…
