The kth finite subset space of a topological space X is the space exp_k X of non-empty finite subsets of X of size at most k, topologised as a quotient of X^k. The construction is a homotopy functor and may be regarded as a union of configuration spaces of distinct unordered points in X. We calculate the homology of the finite subset spaces of a connected graph Gamma, and study the maps (exp_k phi)_* induced by a map phi:Gamma -> Gamma' between two such graphs. By homotopy functoriality the results apply to punctured surfaces also. The braid group B_n may be regarded as the mapping class group of an n-punctured disc D_n, and as such it acts on H_*(exp_k D_n). We prove a structure theorem for this action, showing that the image of the pure braid group is nilpotent of class at most floor((n-1)/2).
Let $S_{0,n}$ be an $n$-punctured sphere. For $n\geq 4$, we construct a sequence $(\mathcal{X}_i)_{i\in\mathbb{N}}$ of finite rigid sets in the pants graph $\mathcal{P}(S_{0,n})$ such that $\mathcal{X}_1 \subset \mathcal{X}_2 \subset ...\subset\mathcal{P}(S_{0,n})$ and $\bigcup_{i\geq1}\mathcal{X}_i=\mathcal{P}(S_{0,n})$.
We describe each multiple curve on the orientable surface of genus-$g$ with $n$ punctures and one boundary component by using this multiple curve's geometric intersection number with the embedded curves in this surface.
Let M be a hyperbolic manifold of finite volume which fibers over the circle with fiber a once punctured torus, and let S be an arbitrary incompressible surface in M. We determine the characteristic JSJ-subpair of M-S and show, in particular, that the guts of (M,S) is empty.
Wolf gave a homeomorphism from the Teichmüller space to the space of quadratic differentials on a closed Riemann surface by using harmonic maps. Moreover, using harmonic maps rays, he gave a compactification of the Teichmüller space and show that it coincides with the Thurston compactification. In this paper, we extend the harmonic maps compactification to the Teichmüller spaces of punctured Riemann surfaces, and show that it still coincides with the Thurston compactification.
We give asymptotic bounds for the optimal Lipschitz constants for the systole map from the Teichmuller space to the curve complex. We give similar results to those known for closed surfaces in the cases when the genus is fixed or the ratio of genus and punctures is a rational number.
We study filling sets of simple closed curves on punctured surfaces. In particular we study lower bounds on the cardinality of sets of curves that fill and that pairwise intersect at most k times on surfaces with given genus and number of punctures. We are able to establish orders of growth for even k and show that for odd k the orders of growth behave differently. We also study the corresponding questions when one requires that the curves be represented as systoles on hyperbolic complete finite area surfaces.
We classify incompressible, boundary-incompressible, nonorientable surfaces in punctured-torus bundles over $S^1$. We use the ideas of Floyd, Hatcher, and Thurston. The main tool is to put our surface in the "Morse position" with respect to the projection of the bundle into the basis S^1.
In this short note, we construct a minimally intersecting pair of simple closed curves that fill a genus 2 surface with an odd, greater than 3, number of punctures. This finishes the determination of minimally intersecting filling pairs for all surfaces completing the work of Aougab-Huang and Aougab-Taylor.
Let $\textrm{Mod}(N_{g, p})$ denote the mapping class group of a nonorientable surface of genus $g$ with $p$ punctures. For $g\geq14$, we show that $\textrm{Mod}(N_{g, p})$ can be generated by five elements or by six involutions.
A meromorphic quadratic differential on a punctured Riemann surface induces horizontal and vertical measured foliations with pole-singularities. In a neighborhood of a pole such a foliation comprises foliated strips and half-planes, and its leaf-space determines a metric graph. We introduce the notion of an asymptotic direction at each pole, and show that for a punctured surface equipped with a choice of such asymptotic data, any compatible pair of measured foliations uniquely determines a complex structure and a meromorphic quadratic differential realizing that pair. This proves the analogue …
Let $Σ$ be a complete finite-area orientable hyperbolic surface with one cusp, and let $\mathcal{R}$ be the space of complete geodesic rays in $Σ$ emanating from the puncture. Then there is a natural action of the mapping class group of $Σ$ on $\mathcal{R}$. We show that this action is "almost everywhere" wandering.
Culler and Shalen, and later Yoshida, give ways to construct incompressible surfaces in 3-manifolds from ideal points of the character and deformation varieties, respectively. We work in the case of hyperbolic punctured torus bundles, for which the incompressible surfaces were classified by Floyd and Hatcher. We convert non fiber incompressible surfaces from their form to the form output by Yoshida's construction, and run his construction backwards to give (for non semi-fibers, which we identify) the data needed to construct ideal points of the deformation variety corresponding to those surfac…
We prove that many normal subgroups of the extended mapping class group of a surface with punctures are geometric, that is, that their automorphism groups and abstract commensurator groups are isomorphic to the extended mapping class group. In order to apply our theorem to a normal subgroup we require that the "minimal supports" of its elements satisfy a certain complexity condition that is easy to check in practice. The key ingredient is proving that the automorphism groups of many simplicial complexes associated to punctured surfaces are isomorphic to the extended mapping class group. This r…
Let $Σ_{g,p}$ be a oriented connected surface of genus $g$ with $p$ punctures. We denote by $\mathcal{M}_{g,p}$ and $\mathcal{M}_{g,p}^\pm$ the mapping class group and the extended mapping class group of $Σ_{g,p}$, respectively. In this paper, we show that $\mathcal{M}_{g,p}$ and $\mathcal{M}_{g,p}^\pm$ are generated by two element for $g\geq 3$ and $p\geq 0$.
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 study the ideal triangulation graph $T(S)$ of a punctured surface $S$ of finite type. We show that if $S$ is not the sphere with at most three punctures or the torus with one puncture, then the natural map from the extended mapping class group of $S$ into the simplicial automorphism group of $T(S)$ is an isomorphism. We also show that under the same conditions on $S$, the graph $T(S)$ equipped with its natural simplicial metric is not Gromov hyperbolic. Thus, from the point of view of Gromov hyperbolicity, the situation of $T(S)$ is different from that of the curve complex of $S$.
This document is a practical guide to computations using an automatic structure for the mapping class group of a once-punctured, oriented surface $S$. We describe a quadratic time algorithm for the word problem in this group, which can be implemented efficiently with pencil and paper. The input of the algorithm is a word, consisting of ``chord diagrams'' of ideal triangulations and elementary moves, which represents an element of the mapping class group. The output is a word called a ``normal form'' that uniquely represents the same group element.
Let F a closed connected orientable surface bounding a genus g handlebody H. In this paper we find a finite set of generators for the subgroup E(2,g) of the pure mapping class group of the twice punctured torus PMCG(2,g), consisting of the isotopy classes of homeomorphisms of F which admit an extension to H keeping a properly embedded trivial arc fixed. This subgroup turns out to be important for the study of knots in closed 3-manifolds via (g,1)-decomposition. In fact, the knots represented by the isotopy classes belonging to the same left cosets of E(2,g) in PMCG(2,g) are equivalent.
Consider the problem of estimating the minimum entropy of pseudo-Anosov maps on a surface of genus $g$ with $n$ punctures. We determine the behaviour of this minimum number for a certain large subset of the $(g,n)$ plane, up to a multiplicative constant. In particular it has been shown that for fixed $n$, this minimum value behaves as $\frac{1}{g}$, proving what Penner speculated in 1991.
We investigate the relation between the topological entropy of pseudo-Anosov maps on surfaces with punctures and the rank of the first homology of their mapping tori. On the surface $S$ of genus $g$ with $n$ punctures, we show that the entropy of a pseudo-Anosov map is bounded from above by $\dfrac{(k+1)\log(k+3)}{|χ(S)|}$ up to a constant multiple when the rank of the first homology of the mapping torus is $k+1$ and $k, g, n$ satisfy a certain assumption. This is a partial generalization of precedent works of Tsai and Agol-Leininger-Margalit.
The main results of the paper is that we give a characteristics for an annulus sum and a once-punctured torus sum of two handlebodies to be a handlebody as follows: 1. The annulus sum $H=H_1\cup_A H_2$ of two handlebodies $H_1$ and $H_2$ is a handlebody if and only if the core curve of $A$ is a longitude for either $H_1$ or $H_2$. 2. Let $H=H_1\cup_T H_2$ be a surface sum of two handlebodies $H_1$ and $H_2$ along a once-punctured torus $T$. Suppose that $T$ is incompressible in both $H_1$ and $H_2$. Then $H$ is a handlebody if and only if the there exists a collection $\{δ, σ\}$ of simple clos…
Let Mod(Sigma_{g, p}) denote the mapping class group of a connected orientable surface of genus g with p punctures. For every even integer p \geq 10 and g \geq 14, we prove that Mod(Sigma_{g, p}) can be generated by three involutions. If the number of punctures p is odd and \geq 9, we show that Mod(Sigma_{g, p}) for g \geq 13 can be generated by four involutions. Moreover, we show that for an even integer p \geq 4 and 3 \leq g \geq 6, Mod(Sigma_{g, p}) can be generated by four involutions.
In this paper, we use a result of Dahmani to show that the Euler class of some power subgroup (the subgroup normally generated by a fixed power of Dehn twist about a non-separating curve) is trivial inside the mapping class group of once punctured surface.
Let $N_{g,n}$ denote the closed non-orientable surface of genus $g$ with $n$ punctures and let ${\mathcal N}_{g,n}$ denote the mapping class group of $N_{g,n}$. Szepietowski showed that ${\mathcal N}_{g,n}$ is generated by finitely many involutions. The number of elements in his generating set depends linearly on $g$ and $n$. In the case of $n=0$, Szepietowski found an involution generating set in such a way that the number of its elements does not depend on $g$, showing that ${\mathcal N}_{g,0}$ is generated by four involutions. In this thesis, for $n \geq 0$, we prove that ${\mathcal N}_{g,n…
Previous work of the author has developed coordinates on bundles over the classical Teichmueller spaces of punctured surfaces and on the space of cosets of the Moebius group in the group of orientation-preserving homeomorphisms of the circle, and this work is surveyed here. Joint work with Dragomir Saric is also sketched which extends these results to the setting of the Teichmueller space of the solenoid of a punctured surface, which is defined here in analogy to Dennis Sullivan's original definition for the case of closed surfaces. Because of relations with the classical modular group, the pu…
The strip map is a natural map from the arc complex of a bordered hyperbolic surface $S$ to the vector space of infinitesimal deformations of $S$. We prove that the image of the strip map is a convex hypersurface when $S$ is a surface of small complexity: the punctured torus or thrice punctured sphere.
In this paper, we construct polynomial growth harmonic maps from once-punctured Riemann surfaces of any finite genus to any even-sided, regular, ideal polygon in the hyperbolic plane. We also establish their uniqueness within a class of maps which differ by exponentially decaying variations. Previously, harmonic maps from once-punctured spheres to the hyperbolic plane have been parameterized by holomorphic quadratic differentials on the complex plane. Our harmonic maps, mapping a genus g>1 domain to a k-sided polygon, correspond to meromorphic quadratic differentials having one pole of order (…
Do and Norbury found a so-called differential relation which relates the volume of the moduli space of singular surface with a cone point to that of a smooth surface obtained by forgetting the cone point. Their procedure is valid for cone angles less than $π$ by work of Tan, Wong and Zhang. We study the moduli space of a surface with a single cone point of angle ranging from $0$ to $2π$ using a coordinate system closely related to Penner's $λ$-lengths. We compute the action of the mapping class group in these coordinates, give an explicit expression for Wolpert's symplectic form and use this t…
We give a combinatorial description of the Legendrian differential graded algebra associated to a Legendrian knot in PxR, where P is a punctured Riemann surface. As an application we show that for any integer k and any homology class h in H_1(PxR) there are k Legendrian knots all representing h which are pairwise smoothly isotopic through a formal Legendrian isotopy but which lie in mutually distinct Legendrian isotopy classes.
In earlier work, we constructed invariants of irreducible representations of the Kauffman skein algebra of a surface. We introduce here an inverse construction, which to a set of possible invariants associates an irreducible representation that realizes these invariants. The current article is restricted to surfaces with at least one puncture, a condition that will be lifted in subsequent work of the authors that relies on this one. A step in the proof is of independent interest, and describes the algebraic structure of the Thurston intersection form on the space of integer weight systems for …
For a punctured surface $S$, we characterize the representations of its fundamental group into $\mathrm{PSL}_2 (\mathbb{C})$ that arise as the monodromy of a meromorphic projective structure on $S$ with poles of order at most two and no apparent singularities. This proves the analogue of a theorem of Gallo-Kapovich-Marden concerning $\mathbb{C}\mathrm{P}^1$-structures on closed surfaces, and settles a long-standing question about characterizing monodromy groups for the Schwarzian equation on punctured spheres. The proof involves a geometric interpretation of the Fock-Goncharov coordinates of t…
We consider the relationship between hyperbolic cone-manifold structures on surfaces, and algebraic representations of the fundamental group into a group of isometries. A hyperbolic cone-manifold structure on a surface, with all interior cone angles being integer multiples of $2π$, determines a holonomy representation of the fundamental group. We ask, conversely, when a representation of the fundamental group is the holonomy of a hyperbolic cone-manifold structure. In this paper we prove results for the punctured torus; in the sequel, for higher genus surfaces. We show that a representation of…
We study the cluster categories arising from marked surfaces (with punctures and non-empty boundaries). By constructing skewed-gentle algebras, we show that there is a bijection between tagged curves and string objects. Applications include interpreting dimensions of $\operatorname{Ext}^1$ as intersection numbers of tagged curves and Auslander-Reiten translation as tagged rotation. An important consequence is that the cluster(-tilting) exchange graphs of such cluster categories are connected.
In this paper, we study punctured spheres in two dimensional ball quotient compactifications $(X, D)$. For example, we show that smooth toroidal compactifications of ball quotients cannot contain properly holomorphically embedded $3$-punctured spheres. We also use totally geodesic punctured spheres to prove ampleness of $K_X + αD$ for $α\in (\frac{1}{4}, 1)$, giving a sharp version of a theorem of the first author with G. Di Cerbo. Finally, we produce the first examples of bielliptic ball quotient compactifications modeled on the Gaussian integers.
This article is dedicated to prove Buser's conjecture about Bers' constants for spheres with cusps (or marked points) and for hyperelliptic surfaces. More specifically, our main theorem states that any hyperbolic sphere with $n$ cusps has a pants decomposition with all of its geodesics of length bounded by a constant roughly square root of $n$. Other results include lower and upper bounds for Bers' constants for hyperelliptic surfaces and spheres with boundary geodesics.
We give counterexamples to a question of Bowditch that if a non-elementary type-preserving representation $ρ:π_1(Σ_{g,n})\rightarrow PSL(2;\mathbb R)$ of a punctured surface group sends every non-peripheral simple closed curve to a hyperbolic element, then must $ρ$ be Fuchsian. The counterexamples come from relative Euler class $\pm1$ representations of the four-punctured sphere group. We also show that the mapping class group action on each non-extremal component of the character space of type-preserving representations of the four-punctured sphere group is ergodic, which confirms a conjectur…
We introduce subgroups ${\mathcal{B}}_g< {\mathcal H}_g$ of the mapping class group $Mod(Σ_g)$ of a closed surface of genus $g \ge 0$ with a Cantor set removed, which are extensions of Thompson's group $V$ by a direct limit of mapping class groups of compact surfaces of genus $g$. We first show that both ${\mathcal{B}}_g$ and ${\mathcal H}_g$ are finitely presented, and that ${\mathcal H}_g$ is dense in $Mod(Σ_g)$. We then exploit the relation with Thompson's groups to study properties ${\mathcal B}_g$ and ${\mathcal H}_g$ in analogy with known facts about finite-type mapping class groups. For…
Let $Σ_{g,p}$ be a closed oriented surface of genus $g\geq 1$ with $p$ punctures. Let $\rm Mod(Σ_{\textit{g,p}})$ be the mapping class group of $Σ_{g,p}$. Wajnryb proved in [Wa] that for $p=0, 1$ $\rm Mod({Σ_{\textit{g,p}}})$ is generated by two elements. Korkmaz proved in [Ko] that one of these generators can be taken as a Dehn twist. For $p\geq 2$, We proved that $\rm Mod(Σ_{\textit{g,p}})$ is generated by three elements.
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.
Let $\textup{H}_g$ be a genus $g$ handlebody and $\textup{MCG}_{2n}(\textup{T}_g)$ be the group of the isotopy classes of orientation preserving homeomorphisms of $\textup{T}_g=\partial\textup{H}_g$, fixing a given set of $2n$ points. In this paper we find a finite set of generators for $\mathcal{E}_{2n}^g$, the subgroup of $\textup{MCG}_{2n}(\textup{T}_g)$ consisting of the isotopy classes of homeomorphisms of $\textup{T}_g$ admitting an extension to the handlebody and keeping fixed the union of $n$ disjoint properly embedded trivial arcs. This result generalizes a previous one obtained by th…
Consider an oriented compact surface F of positive genus, possibly with boundary, and a finite set P of punctures in the interior of F, and define the punctured mapping class group of F relatively to P to be the group of isotopy classes of orientation-preserving homeomorphisms h: F-->F which pointwise fix the boundary of F and such that h(P) = P. In this paper, we calculate presentations for all punctured mapping class groups. More precisely, we show that these groups are isomorphic with quotients of Artin groups by some relations involving fundamental elements of parabolic subgroups.
We study two $2$-dimensional Teichmüller spaces of surfaces with boundary and marked points, namely, the pentagon and the punctured triangle. We show that their geometry is quite different from Teichmüller spaces of closed surfaces. Indeed, both spaces are exhausted by regular convex geodesic polygons with a fixed number of sides, and their geodesics diverge at most linearly.
A fast algorithm for counting intersections of two normal curves on a triangulated surface is proposed. It yields a convenient way for treating mapping class groups of punctured surfaces by presenting mapping classes by matrices, and the composition by an exotic matrix multiplication. An efficient solution of the word problem for mapping class groups of punctured surfaces is proposed, with efficiency understood in a more restrictive way than the most common one.
A triangulation of a punctured or pinched surface is irreducible if no edge can be shrunk without producing multiple edges or changing the topological type of the surface. The finiteness of the set of (non-isomorphic) irreducible triangulations of any punctured surface is established. Complete lists of irreducible triangulations are determined for the Möbius band (6 in number) and the pinched torus (2 in number). All the non-isomorphic combinatorial types (20 in number) of triangulations of the projective plane with up to 8 vertices are determined.
We find bounds for the length of the systole -- the shortest essential, non-peripheral closed curve -- for arithmetic punctured spheres with $n$ cusps, for $n=4$ through $n=12$, some of which were previously known due to Schmutz. This is shown using a correspondence between such surfaces and planar triangulations. We show that for $n=7,10,11$, arithmetic surfaces do not achieve the maximal systole length.
We continue our investigation of the space of geodesic laminations on a surface, endowed with the Hausdorff topology. We determine the topology of this space for the once-punctured torus and the 4-times-punctured sphere. For these two surfaces, we also compute the Hausdorff dimension of the space of geodesic laminations, when it is endowed with the natural metric which, for small distances, is -1 over the logarithm of the Hausdorff metric. The key ingredient is an estimate of the Hausdorff metric between two simple closed geodesics in terms of their respective slopes.
We derive two types of linearity conditions for mapping class groups of orientable surfaces: one for once-punctured surface, and the other for closed surface, respectively. For the once-punctured case, the condition is described in terms of the action of the mapping class group on the deformation space of linear representations of the fundamental group of the corresponding closed surface. For the closed case, the condition is described in terms of the vector space generated by the isotopy classes of essential simple closed curves on the corresponding surface. The latter condition also describe…
Two related constructions are studied: (1) The diagonal complex $\mathcal{D}$ and its barycentric subdivision $\mathcal{BD}$ related to a \textit{punctured} oriented surface $F$ equipped with a number of labeled marked points. (2) The symmetric diagonal complex $\mathcal{D}^{inv}$ and its barycentric subdivision $\mathcal{BD}^{inv}$ related to a symmetric (=with an involution) oriented surface $F$ equipped with a number of (symmetrically placed) labeled marked points. Eliminating a puncture gives rise to a bundle whose fibers are homeomorphic to a surgery of the surface $F$. The bundle can be …
