Masur-Veech volumes, frequencies of simple closed geodesics and intersection numbers of moduli spaces of curves
Vincent Delecroix, Elise Goujard, Peter Zograf, Anton Zorich
备注：
The current paper (as well as the companion paper arXiv:2007.04740) has grown from arxiv:1908.08611. The conjectures stated in arXiv:1908.08611 are proved by A. Aggarwal in arXiv:2004.05042
发表信息：
Duke Mathematical Journal, 170 no. 12 (2021), 2633-2718
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 without explicit evaluation) was obtained earlier by Mirzakhani via completely different approach.
Furthermore, we prove that the density of the mapping class group orbit of any simple closed multicurve $γ$ inside the ambient set of integral measured laminations computed by Mirzakhani coincides with the density of square-tiled surfaces having horizontal cylinder decomposition associated to $γ$ among all square-tiled surfaces in $\mathcal{Q}_{g,n}$.
We study the resulting densities (or, equivalently, volume contributions) in more detail in the special case $n=0$. In particular, we compute the asymptotic frequencies of separating and non-separating simple closed geodesics on a closed hyperbolic surface of genus $g$ for small $g$ and we show that for large genera the separating closed geodesics are $\sqrt{\frac{2}{3πg}}\cdot\frac{1}{4^g}$ times less frequent.
We state conjectures on the asymptotic behavior of the Masur-Veech volumes of strata in the moduli spaces of meromorphic quadratic differentials and on the asymptotics of their area Siegel-Veech constants as the genus tends to infinity.
We compute explicitly the absolute contribution of square-tiled surfaces having a single horizontal cylinder to the Masur-Veech volume of any ambient stratum of Abelian differentials. The resulting count is particularly simple and efficient in the large genus asymptotics. Using the recent results of Aggarwal and of Chen-Moeller-Zagier on the long-standing conjecture about the large genus asymptotics of Masur-Veech volumes, we derive that the relative contribution is asymptotically of the order 1/d, where d is the dimension of the stratum. Similarly, we evaluate the contribution of one-cylinder…
We calculate the Masur-Veech volume of the gothic locus $\mathcal{G}$ in the stratum $\mathcal{H}(2^{3})$ of genus four. Our method is based on the use of the formulae for the Euler characteristics of gothic Teichmüller curves to determine the number of lattice points of given area. We also use this method to recalculate the Masur-Veech volumes of the Prym loci $\mathcal{P}_{3}\subset\mathcal{H}(4)$ and $\mathcal{P}_{4}\subset\mathcal{H}(6)$ in genus three and four.
We study the asymptotic behavior of Masur-Veech volumes as the genus goes to infinity. We show the existence of a complete asymptotic expansion of these volumes that depends only on the genus and the number of singularities. The computation of the first term of this asymptotics expansion was a long standing problem. This problem was recently solved in by Aggarwal using purely combinatorial arguments, and then by D. Chen, M. Moeller, D. Zagier and the author using algebro-geometric insights. Our proof relies on a combination of both methods.
We express the Masur-Veech volume and the area Siegel-Veech constant of the moduli space of meromorphic quadratic differential with simple poles as polynomials in the intersection numbers of psi-classes supported on the boundary cycles of the Deligne-Mumford compactification of the moduli space of curves. Our formulae are derived from lattice point count involving the Kontsevich volume polynomials that also appear in Mirzakhani's recursion for the Weil-Petersson volumes of the moduli space of bordered hyperbolic Riemann surfaces. A similar formula for the Masur-Veech volume (though without exp…
A meander is a topological configuration of a line and a simple closed curve in the plane (or a pair of simple closed curves on the 2-sphere) intersecting transversally. Meanders can be traced back to H. Poincaré and naturally appear in various areas of mathematics, theoretical physics and computational biology (in particular, they provide a model of polymer folding). Enumeration of meanders is an important open problem. The number of meanders with 2N crossings grows exponentially when N grows, but the longstanding problem on the precise asymptotics is still out of reach. We show that the situ…
We prove that square-tiled surfaces having fixed combinatorics of horizontal cylinder decomposition and tiled with smaller and smaller squares become asymptotically equidistributed in any ambient linear $GL(\mathbb R)$-invariant suborbifold defined over $\mathbb Q$ in the moduli space of Abelian differentials. Moreover, we prove that the combinatorics of the horizontal and of the vertical decompositions are asymptotically uncorrelated. As a consequence, we prove the existence of an asymptotic distribution for the combinatorics of a "random" interval exchange transformation with integer lengths…
In this paper we analyze the large genus asymptotics for intersection numbers between $ψ$-classes, also called correlators, on the moduli space of stable curves. Our proofs proceed through a combinatorial analysis of the recursive relations (Virasoro constraints) that uniquely determine these correlators, together with a comparison between the coefficients in these relations with the jump probabilities of a certain asymmetric simple random walk. As an application of this result, we provide the large genus limits for Masur-Veech volumes and area Siegel-Veech constants associated with principal …
In this paper we consider the large genus asymptotics for Masur-Veech volumes of arbitrary strata of Abelian differentials. Through a combinatorial analysis of an algorithm proposed in 2002 by Eskin-Okounkov to exactly evaluate these quantities, we show that the volume $ν_1 \big( \mathcal{H}_1 (m) \big)$ of a stratum indexed by a partition $m = (m_1, m_2, \ldots , m_n)$ is $\big( 4 + o(1) \big) \prod_{i = 1}^n (m_i + 1)^{-1}$ as $2g - 2 = \sum_{i = 1}^n m_i$ tends to $\infty$. This confirms a prediction of Eskin-Zorich and generalizes some of the recent results of Chen-Moeller-Zagier and Sauva…
We study the dynamics of the Teichmuller flow in the moduli space of Abelian differentials (and more generally, its restriction to any connected component of a stratum). We show that the (Masur-Veech) absolutely continuous invariant probability measure is exponentially mixing for the class of Holder observables. A geometric consequence is that the $\SL(2,\R)$ action in the moduli space has a spectral gap.
Interval exchange maps are related to geodesic flows on translation surfaces; they correspond to the first return maps of the vertical flow on a transverse segment. The Rauzy-Veech induction on the space of interval exchange maps provides a powerful tool to analyze the Teichmueller geodesic flow on the moduli space of Abelian differentials. Several major results have been proved using this renormalization. Danthony and Nogueira introduced in 1988 a natural generalization of interval exchange transformations, namely the linear involutions. These maps are related to general measured foliations o…
The Masur domain is a subset of the space of projective measured geodesic laminations on the boundary of a 3-manifold M. This domain plays an important role in the study of the hyperbolic structures on the interior of M. In this paper, we define an extension of the Masur domain and explain that it shares a lot of properties with the Masur domain.
We construct a counterexample for an analogue of Masur's criterion in the setting of Teichmüller space equipped with the Thurston metric. For that, we find a minimal, filling, non-uniquely ergodic lamination $λ$ on the seven-times punctured sphere with uniformly bounded annular projection distances. Then we show that a geodesic in the corresponding Teichmüller space that converges to $λ$, stays in the thick part for the whole time.
We study the convergence of earthquake paths and horocycle paths in the Gardiner-Masur compactification of Teichmüller space. We show that an earthquake path directed by a uniquely ergodic or simple closed measured geodesic lamination converges to the Gardiner-Masur boundary. Using the embedding of flat metrics into the space of geodesic currents, we prove that a horocycle path in Teichmüller space, induced by a quadratic differential whose vertical measured foliation is unique ergodic, converges to the Gardiner-Masur boundary and to the Thurston boundary.
We give a description of asymptotic quadratic growth rates for geodesic segments on covers of Veech surfaces in terms of the modular fiber parameterizing coverings of a fixed Veech surface. To make the paper self contained we derive the necessary asymptotic formulas from the Gutkin-Judge formula. As an application of the method we define and analyze d-symmetric elliptic differentials and their modular fibers F^{sym}_d. For given genus g, g-symmetric elliptic differentials (with fixed base lattice) provide a 2-dimensional family of translation surfaces. We calculate several asymptotic constants…
For a non-uniform lattice in SL(2,R), we consider excursions in cusp neighborhoods of a random geodesic on the corresponding finite area hyperbolic surface or orbifold. We prove a strong law for a certain partial sum involving these excursions. This generalizes a theorem of Diamond and Vaaler for continued fractions. In the Teichmuller setting, we consider invariant measures for the SL(2,R) action on the moduli spaces of quadratic differentials. By the work of Eskin and Mirzakhani, these measures are supported on affine invariant submanifolds of a stratum of quadratic differentials. For a Teic…
Abelian differentials on Riemann surfaces can be seen as translation surfaces, which are flat surfaces with cone-type singularities. Closed geodesics for the associated flat metrics form cylinders whose number under a given maximal length generically has quadratic asymptotics in this length, with a common coefficient constant for the quadratic asymptotics called a Siegel--Veech constant which is shared by almost all surfaces in each moduli space of translation surfaces. Square-tiled surfaces are specific translation surfaces which have their own quadratic asymptotics for the number of cylinder…
An Abelian differential gives rise to a flat structure (translation surface) on the underlying Riemann surface. In some directions the directional flow on the flat surface may contain a periodic region that is made up of maximal cylinders filled by parallel geodesics of the same length. The growth rate of the number of such regions counted with weights, as a function of the length, is quadratic with a coefficient, called Siegel-Veech constant, that is shared by almost all translation surfaces in the ambient stratum. We evaluate various Siegel-Veech constants associated to the geometry of confi…
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…
In two fundamental classical papers, Masur and Veech have independently proved that the Teichmueller geodesic flow acts ergodically on each connected component of each stratum of the moduli space of quadratic differentials. It is therefore interesting to have a classification of the ergodic components. Veech has proved that these strata are not necessarily connected. In a recent work, Kontsevich and Zorich have completely classified the components in the particular case where the quadratic differentials are given by the global square of Abelian differentials. Here we are interested in the comp…
This short survey illustrates the ideas of Teichmuller dynamics. As a model application we consider the asymptotic topology of generic geodesics on a "flat" surface and count closed geodesics and saddle connections. This survey is based on the joint papers with A.Eskin and H.Masur and with M.Kontsevich.
We give a combinatorial proof, using the hyperbolicity of the curve graphs, of the bounded geodesic image theorem of Masur and Minsky. Recently it has been shown that curve graphs are uniformly hyperbolic, thus a universal bound can be given for the diameter of the geodesic image. We also generalize the theorem for projections to markings of the whole surface.
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 geodes…
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 give an algorithm for determining the distance between two vertices of the complex of curves. While there already exist such algorithms, for example by Leasure, Shackleton, and Webb, our approach is new, simple, and more effective for all distances accessible by computer. Our method gives a new preferred finite set of geodesics between any two vertices of the complex, called efficient geodesics, which are different from the tight geodesics introduced by Masur and Minsky.
In 1981 Masur proved the existence of a dense geodesic in the moduli space for a Teichmüller space. We prove an analogue theorem for reduced Outer Space endowed with the Lipschitz metric. We also prove two results possibly of independent interest: we show Brun's unordered algorithm weakly converges and from this prove that the set of Perron-Frobenius eigenvectors of positive integer $m \times m$ matrices is dense in the positive cone $\mathbb{R}^m_+$ (these matrices will in fact be the transition matrices of positive automorphisms). We give a proof in the appendix that not every point in the b…
Flat surfaces with erasing forest are obtained by deforming the flat metric structure of translation surfaces, the moduli space of such surfaces is a deformation of the moduli space of translation surfaces. On the moduli space of flat surfaces with erasing forest, one can define some energy function involving the area of the surface, and the total length of the erasing forest. Note that on this space, we have a volume form which is defined by using geodesic triangulations. The aim of this paper is to prove that the integral of the energy functions mentionned above with respect to this volume f…
We give an algorithm to compute the stable lengths of pseudo-Anosovs on the curve graph, answering a question of Bowditch. We also give a procedure to compute all invariant tight geodesic axes of pseudo-Anosovs. Along the way we show that there are constants $1<a_1<a_2$ such that the minimal upper bound on `slices' of tight geodesics is bounded below and above by $a_1^{ξ(S)}$ and $a_2^{ξ(S)}$, where $ξ(S)$ is the complexity of the surface. As a consequence, we give the first computable bounds on the asymptotic dimension of curve graphs and mapping class groups. Our techniques involve a general…
The curve graphs are not locally finite. In this paper, we show that the curve graphs satisfy a property which is equivalent to graphs being uniformly locally finite via Masur--Minsky's subsurface projections. As a direct application of this study, we show that there exist computable bounds for Bowditch's slices on tight geodesics, which depend only on the surface. As an extension of this application, we define a new class of geodesics, weak tight geodesics, and we also obtain a computable finiteness statement on the cardinalities of the slices on weak tight geodesics.
We give a uniform bound of the bounded geodesic image theorem for the closed oriented surfaces. The proof utilizes the bicorn curves introduced by Przytycki and Sisto (see arXiv:1502.02176). With the uniformly bounded Hausdorff distance of the bicorn paths and 1-slimness of the bicorn curve triangles, we are able to show the bound is 44 for both non-annular and annular subsurfaces. In a particular case when the distance between a geodesic and an essential boundary component of subsurface (or core if it is annular) is $\geq 18$, then the bound can be as small as 3, which is comparable to the bo…
We use the relation between the volumes of the strata of meromorphic quadratic differentials with at most simple poles on the Riemann sphere and counting functions of the number of (bands of) closed geodesics in associated flat metrics with singularities to prove a very explicit formula for the volume of each such stratum conjectured by M. Kontsevich a decade ago. The proof is based on a formula for the Lyapunov exponents of the geodesic flow on the moduli space, which gives a recursive formula from which the volumes could be recovered. An appendix with an ergodic theorem proved by Jon Chaika …
Tight geodesics were introduced by Masur-Minsky in [17]. They and their hierarchies have been a powerful tool in the study of the curve complex, mapping class groups, Teichmüller spaces, and hyperbolic 3-manifolds. In the same paper, they showed that there are at least one and at most finitely many tight geodesics between any two vertices in the curve complex. Bowditch found a uniform finiteness property on tight geodesics [9], and this property has given further important applications in some of the above studies. In this paper, we introduce classes of geodesics which are not tight but still …
Given two measured laminations mu and nu in a hyperbolic surface which fill up the surface, Kerckhoff [Lines of Minima in Teichmueller space, Duke Math J. 65 (1992) 187-213] defines an associated line of minima along which convex combinations of the length functions of mu and nu are minimised. This is a line in Teichmueller space which can be thought as analogous to the geodesic in hyperbolic space determined by two points at infinity. We show that when mu is uniquely ergodic, this line converges to the projective lamination [mu], but that when mu is rational, the line converges not to [mu], b…
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…
In the context of CAT(0) cubical groups, we develop an analogue of the theory of curve complexes and subsurface projections. The role of the subsurfaces is played by a collection of convex subcomplexes called a \emph{factor system}, and the role of the curve graph is played by the \emph{contact graph}. There are a number of close parallels between the contact graph and the curve graph, including hyperbolicity, acylindricity of the action, the existence of hierarchy paths, and a Masur--Minsky-style distance formula. We then define a \emph{hierarchically hyperbolic space}; the class of such spac…
