We investigate the translation lengths of group elements that arise in random walks on the isometry groups of Gromov hyperbolic spaces. In particular, without any moment condition, we prove that non-elementary random walks exhibit at least linear growth of translation lengths. As a corollary, almost every random walk on mapping class groups eventually becomes pseudo-Anosov and almost every random walk on $\mathrm{Out}(F_n)$ eventually becomes fully irreducible. If the underlying measure further has finite first moment, then the growth rate of translation lengths is equal to the drift, the escape rate of the random walk.
We then apply our technique to investigate the random walks induced by the action of mapping class groups on Teichm{ü}ller spaces. In particular, we prove the spectral theorem under finite first moment condition, generalizing a result of Dahmani and Horbez.
In this paper, we introduce a new asymmetric weak metric on the Teichm{ü}ller space of a closed orientable surface with (possibly empty) punctures.This new metric, which we call the Teichm{ü}ller-Randers metric, is an asymmetric deformation of the Teichm{ü}ller metric, and is obtained by adding to the infinitesimal form of the Teichm{ü}ller metric a differential 1-form. We study basic properties of the Teichm{ü}ller-Randers metric. In the case when the 1-form is exact, any Teichm{ü}ller geodesic between two points is a unique Teichm{ü}ller--Randers geodesic between them. A particularly interes…
We comment on Teichm{ü}ller 's paper ''Vollst{ä}ndige L{ö}sung einer Extremalaufgabe der quasikonformen Abbildung'' (Complete solution of an ex-tremal problem of the quasiconformal mapping),, published in 1941. In this paper, Teichm{ü}ller gives a proof of the existence of extremal quasiconformal mappings in the case of the pentagon (disc with five distinguished points on the boundary). The final version of this paper will appear as a chapter in Volume VI of the Handbook of Teichm{ü}ller theory.
In this paper, the Teichm{ü}ller spaces of surfaces appear from two points of views: the conformal category and the hyperbolic category. In contrast to the case of surfaces of topologically finite type, the Teichm{ü}ller spaces associated to surfaces of topologically infinite type depend on the choice of a base structure. In the setting of surfaces of infinite type, the Teichm{ü}ller spaces can be endowed with different distance functions such as the length-spectrum distance, the bi-Lipschitz distance, the Fenchel-Nielsen distance, the Teichm{ü}ller distance and there are other distance functi…
For each right-angled hexagon in the hyperbolic plane, we construct a one-parameter family of right-angled hexagons with a Lipschitz map between any two elements in this family, realizing the smallest Lipschitz constant in the homotopy class of this map relative to the boundary. As a consequence of this construction, we exhibit new geodesics for the arc metric on the Teichm{ü}ller space of an arbitrary surface of negative Euler characteristic with nonempty boundary. We also obtain new geodesics for Thurston's metric on Teichm{ü}ller spaces of hyperbolic surfaces without boundary.
In this paper, we show that the analogue of Thurston's asymmetric metric on the Teichm{ü}ller space of flat structures on the torus is weak Finsler and we give a geometric description of its unit sphere at each point in the tangent space to Teichm{ü}ller space. We then introduce a family of weak Finsler metrics which interpolate between Thurston's asymmetric metric and the Teichm{ü}ller metric of the torus (which coincides with the the hyperbolic metric). We describe the infinitesimal unit spheres of the metrics in this family.The final version of this paper will appear in Annales Academiæ \ S…
These are notes on the hyperbolic geometry of surfaces, Teichm{ü}ller spaces and Thurston's metric on these spaces. They are associated with lectures I gave at the Morningside Center of Mathematics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in March 2019 and at the Chebyshev Laboratory of the Saint Petersburg State University in May 2019. In particular, I survey several results on the behavior of stretch lines, a distinguished class of geodesics for Thurston's metric and I point out several analogies between this metric and Teichm{ü}ller's metric. Several open questions are addressed. The final versio…
We survey some major contributions to Riemann's moduli space and Teichm{ü}ller space. Our report has a historical character, but the stress is on the chain of mathematical ideas. We start with the introduction of Riemann surfaces, and we end with the discovery of some of the basic structures of Riemann's moduli space and Teichm{ü}ller space. We point out several facts which seem to be unknown to many algebraic geometers and analysts working in the theory. The period we are interested in starts with Riemann, in 1851, and ends in the early 1960s, when Ahlfors and Bers confirmed that Teichm{ü}lle…
This is a commentary on Teichm{ü}ller's paper Unter-suchungen{ü}ber konforme und quasikonforme Abbildungen (Inves-tigations on conformal and quasiconformal mappings) published in 1938. The paper contains fundamental results in conformal geometry , in particular a lemma, known as the Modulsatz, which insures the almost circularity of certain loci defined as complementary components of simply connected regions in the Riemann sphere, and another lemma, which we call the Main Lemma, which insures the circularity near infinity of the image of circles by a qua-siconformal map. The two results find w…
Let $S$ be a closed oriented surface of genus at least $2$, and denote by $\mathcal{T}(S)$ its Teichm{ü}ller space. For any isotopy class of closed curves $γ$, we compute the first three derivatives of the length function $\ell\_γ:\mathcal{T}(S)\rightarrow\mathbf{R}\_+$ in the shearing coordinates associated to a maximal geodesic lamination $λ$. We show that if $γ$ intersects every leaf of $λ$, then the Hessian of $\ell\_γ$ is positive-definite. We extend this result to length functions of measured laminations. We also provide a method to compute higher derivatives of length functions of geode…
The type problem is the problem of deciding, for a simply connected Riemann surface, whether it is conformally equivalent to the complex plane or to the unit dic in the complex plane. We report on Teichm{ü}ller's results on the type problem from his two papers Eine Anwendung quasikonformer Abbildungen auf das Typenproblem (An application of quasiconformal map-pings to the type problem) (1937) and Untersuchungen{ü}ber kon-forme und quasikonforme Abbildungen (Investigations on con-formal and quasiconformal mappings) (1938). They concern simply connected Riemann surfaces defined as branched cover…
This is a mathematical commentary on Teichm{ü}ller's paper ``Bestimmung der extremalen quasikonformen Abbildungen bei geschlossenen orientierten Riemannschen Fl{ä}chen'' (Determination of extremal quasiconformal maps of closed oriented Riemann surfaces). This paper is among the last (and may be the last one) that Teichm{ü}ller wrote on the theory of moduli. It contains the proof of the so-called Teichm{ü}ller existence theorem for a closed surface of genus at least 2. For this proof, the author defines a mapping between a space of equivalence classes of marked Riemann surfaces (the Teichm{ü}ll…
We provide a commentary on Teichm{ü}ller's paper "Extremale quasikonforme Abbildungen und quadratische Differentiale" (Extremal quasiconformal mappings of closed oriented Riemann surfaces), Abh. Preuss. Akad. Wiss., Math.-Naturw. Kl. 1940, No.22, 1-197 (1940). The paper is quoted in several works, although it was read by very few people. Some of the results it contains were rediscovered later on and published without any reference to Teichm{ü}ller.In this commentary, we highlight the main results and the main ideas contained in that paper and we describe some of the important developments they…
For $g \ge 5$, we give a complete classification of the connected components of strata of abelian differentials over Teichmüller space, establishing an analogue of Kontsevich and Zorich's classification of their components over moduli space. Building off of work of the first author (arXiv:1901.05482), we find that the non-hyperelliptic components are classified by an invariant known as an $r$-spin structure. This is accomplished by computing a certain monodromy group valued in the mapping class group. To do this, we determine explicit finite generating sets for all $r$-spin stabilizer subgroup…
The combinatorial structure of the unit tangent spheres and cotangent spheres of Teichm{ü}ller space with Thurston's Finsler metric
Gakushuin University（学习院大学）；Max-Planck Institute for Mathematics（马克斯·普朗克数学研究所）；Institut de Recherche Mathématique Avancée, CNRS et Université de Strasbourg（斯特拉斯堡大学法国国家科学研究中心高级数学研究所）
This is a commentary on Teichm{ü}ller's paper Ein Verschiebungssatz der quasikonformen Abbildung (A displacement theorem of quasiconformal mapping), published in 1944. We explain in detail how Teichm{ü}ller solves the problem of finding the quasiconformal mapping from the unit disc to itself, sending 0 to a strictly negative point on the real line, holding the boundary of the disc pointwise fixed and with the smallest quasiconformal dilatation. We mention also some consequences of this extremal problem and we ask a question.
The arc metric is an asymmetric metric on the Teichm{ü}ller space T(S) of a surface S with nonempty boundary. In this paper we study the relation between Thurston's compactification and the horofunction compactification of T(S) endowed with the arc metric. We prove that there is a natural homeomorphism between the two compactifications.
We prove that the Teichmüller space of surfaces with given boundary lengths equipped with the arc metric (resp. the Teichmüller metric) is almost isometric to the Teichmüller space of punctured surfaces equipped with the Thurston metric (resp. the Teichmüller metric).
We review some ideas of Grothendieck and others on actions of the absolute Galois group Γ Q of Q (the automorphism group of the tower of finite extensions of Q), related to the geometry and topology of surfaces (mapping class groups, Teichm{ü}ller spaces and moduli spaces of Riemann surfaces). Grothendieck's motivation came in part from his desire to understand the absolute Galois group. But he was also interested in Thurston's work on surfaces, and he expressed this in his Esquisse d'un programme, his R{é}coltes et semailles and on other occasions. He introduced the notions of dessin d'enfant…
Grothendieck's Esquisse d'un programme is often referred to for the ideas it contains on dessins d'enfants, the Teichm{ü}ller tower, and the actions of the absolute Galois group on these objects or their etale fundamental groups. But this program contains several other important ideas. In particular, motivated by surface topology and moduli spaces of Riemann surfaces, Grothendieck calls there for a recasting of topology, in order to make it fit to the objects of semialgebraic and semianalytic geometry, and in particular to the study of the Mumford-Deligne compactifications of moduli spaces. A …
This paper shows that, in dimensions two or more, there are no holomorphic isometries between Teichmüller spaces and bounded symmetric domains in their intrinsic Kobayashi metrics.
This paper is devoted to study of transformations on metric spaces. It is done in an effort to produce qualitative version of quasi-isometries which takes into account the asymptotic behavior of the Gromov product in hyperbolic spaces. We characterize a quotient semigroup of such transformations on Teichmüller space by use of simplicial automorphisms of the complex of curves, and we will see that such transformation is recognized as a "coarsification" of isometries on Teichmüller space which is rigid at infinity. We also show a hyperbolic characteristic that any finite dimensional Teichmüller …
We study the class of holomorphic and isometric submersions between finite-type Teichmüller spaces. We prove that, with potential exceptions coming from low-genus phenomena, any such map is a forgetful map $\mathcal{T}_{g,n} \rightarrow \mathcal{T}_{g,m}$ obtained by filling in punctures. This generalizes a classical result of Royden and Earle-Kra asserting that biholomorphisms between finite-type Teichmüller spaces arise from mapping classes. As a key step in the argument, we prove that any $\mathbb{C}$-linear embedding $Q(X)\hookrightarrow Q(Y)$ between spaces of integrable quadratic differe…
Consider a 3$-$dimensional manifold $N$ obtained by gluing a finite number of ideal hyperbolic tetrahedra via isometries along their faces. By varying the isometry type of each tetrahedron but keeping fixed the gluing pattern we define a space $\mathcal{T}$ of complete hyperbolic metrics on $N$ with cone singularities along the edges of the tetrahedra. We prove that $\mathcal{T}$ is homeomorphic to a Euclidean space and we compute its dimension. By means of examples, we examine if the elements of $% \mathcal{T}$ are uniquely determined by the angles around the edges of $N.$
We explicitly describe the Teichmuller space TH_n of hyperelliptic surfaces in terms of natural and effective coordinates as the space of certain (2n-6)-tuples of distinct points on the ideal boundary of the Poincare disc. We essentially use the concept of a simple earthquake which is a particular case of a Fenchel-Nielsen twist deformation. Such earthquakes generate a group that acts transitively on TH_n. This fact can be interpreted as a continuous analog of the well-known Dehn theorem saying that the mapping class group is generated by Dehn twists. We find a simple and effective criterion t…
Minkowski space is the local model of 3 dimensionnal flat spacetimes. Recent progress in the description of globally hyperbolic flat spacetimes showed strong link between Lorentzian geometry and Teichm{ü}ller space. We notice that Lorentzian generalisations of conical singularities are useful for the endeavours of descripting flat spacetimes, creating stronger links with hyperbolic geometry and compactifying spacetimes. In particular massive particles and extreme BTZ singular lines arise naturally. This paper is three-fold. First, prove background local properties which will be useful for futu…
In this paper, we give a framework for the study of the extremal length geometry of Teichmüller space after S. Kerckhoff, F. Gardiner and H. Masur. There is a natural compactification using extremal length geometry introduced by Gardiner and Masur. The compactification is realized in a certain projective space. We develop the extremal length geometry in the cone which is defined as the inverse image of the compactification via the quotient mapping. The compactification is identified with a subset of the cone by taking an appropriate lift. The cone contains canonically the space of measured fol…
Let S be an orientable surface of finite type and let Mod(S) be its mapping class group. We consider actions of Mod(S) by semisimple isometries on complete CAT(0) spaces. If the genus of S is at least 3, then in any such action all Dehn twists act as elliptic isometries. The action of Mod(S) on the completion of Teichmüller space with the Weil-Petersson metric shows that there are interesting actions of this type. Whenever the mapping class group of a closed orientable surface of genus g acts by semisimple isometries on a complete CAT(0) space of dimension less than g it must fix a point. The …
The theme of this survey is that subgroups of the mapping class group of a finite type surface S can be studied via the geometric/dynamical properties of their action on the Thurston compactification of the Teichmuller space of S, just as discrete subgroups of the isometries of hyperbolic space can be studied via their action on compactified hyperbolic space.
We study extreme values of group-indexed stable random fields for discrete groups $G$ acting geometrically on spaces $X$ in the following cases: 1) $G$ acts freely, properly discontinuously by isometries on a CAT(-1) space $X$, 2) $G$ is a lattice in a higher rank Lie group, acting on a symmetric space $X$, 3) $G$ is the mapping class group of a surface acting on its Teichmuller space. The connection between extreme values and the geometric action is mediated by the action of the group $G$ on its limit set equipped with the Patterson-Sullivan measure. Based on motivation from extreme value the…
Classical Kleinian groups are discrete subgroups of isometries of H n. The well-known theory of Kleinian groups starts with the definition of their associated limit set in the boundary of H n , and includes the geometric properties of the quotient hyperbolic space. This approach, naively applied, fails in the Lorentzian analogue anti-de Sitter space: discrete subgroups do not act properly discontinuously, and in many cases the set of accumulation points of orbits at the conformal boundary at infinity depends on the orbit. In this survey, we point out a way to extend this classical theory by in…
Hierarchically hyperbolic spaces provide a common framework for studying mapping class groups of finite type surfaces, Teichmüller space, right-angled Artin groups, and many other cubical groups. Given such a space $\mathcal X$, we build a bordificationcompatible with the hierarchically hyperbolic structure. If $\mathcal X$ is proper, we get a compactification of $\mathcal X$; we also prove that our construction generalizes the Gromov boundary of a hyperbolic space. In our first main set of applications, we introduce a notion of geometrical finiteness for hierarchically hyperbolic subgroups of…
