In this survey paper we give a proof of hyperbolicity of the complex of curves for a non-exceptional surface S of finite type combining ideas of Masur/Minsky and Bowditch. We also shortly discuss the relation between the geometry of the complex of curves and the geometry of Teichmueller space.
We provide a combinatorial condition characterizing curves that are short along a Teichmueller geodesic. This condition is closely related to the condition provided by Minsky for curves in a hyperbolic 3-manifold to be short. We show that short curves in a hyperbolic manifold homeomorphic to S x R are also short in the corresponding Teichmueller geodesic, and we provide examples demonstrating that the converse is not true.
We construct a Teichmueller curve uniformized by the Fuchsian triangle group (m,n,\infty) for every m<n. Our construction includes the Teichmueller curves constructed by Veech and Ward as special cases. The construction essentially relies on properties of hypergeometric differential operators. For small m, we find Billiard tables that generate these Teichmueller curves. We interprete some of the so-called Lyapunov exponents of the Kontsevich--Zorich cocycle as normalized degrees of some natural line bundles on a Teichmueller curves. We determine the Lyapunov exponents for the Teichmueller curv…
The minimal stratum in Prym loci have been the first source of infinitely many primitive, but not algebraically primitive Teichmueller curves. We show that the stratum Prym(2,1,1) contains no such Teichmueller curve and the stratum Prym(2,2) at most 92 such Teichmueller curves. This complements the recent progress establishing general -- but non-effective -- methods to prove finiteness results for Teichmueller curves and serves as proof of concept how to use the torsion condition in the non-algebraically primitive case.
We show that for each genus there are only finitely many algebraically primitive Teichmueller curves C, such that i) C lies in the hyperelliptic locus and ii) C is generated by an abelian differential with two zeros of order g-1. We prove moreover that for these Teichmueller curves the trace field of the affine group is not only totally real but cyclotomic.
We study the asymptotic geometry of Teichmueller geodesic rays. We show that when the transverse measures to the vertical foliations of the quadratic differentials determining two different rays are topologically equivalent, but are not absolutely continuous with respect to each other, then the rays diverge in Teichmueller space.
We classify curves in the moduli space of curves that are both Shimura- and Teichmueller curves: Except for the moduli space of genus one curves there is only a single such curve. We start with a Hodge-theoretic description of Shimura curves and of Teichmueller curves that reveals similarities and differences of the two classes of curves. The proof of the classification relies on the geometry of square-tiled coverings and on estimating the numerical invariants of these particular fibered surfaces. Finally we translate our main result into a classification of Teichmueller curves with totally de…
We study Thurston's Lipschitz and curve metrics, as well as the arc metric on the Teichmueller space of one-hold tori equipped with complete hyperbolic metrics with boundary holonomy of fixed length. We construct natural Lipschitz maps between two surfaces equipped with such hyperbolic metrics that generalize Thurston's stretch maps and prove the following: (1) On the Teichmueller space of the torus with one boundary component, the Lipschitz and the curve metrics coincide and define a geodesic metric on this space. (2) On the same space, the arc and the curve metrics coincide when the length o…
In this note, we fill in a gap in the literature by proving that the Teichmueller modular groups (mapping class groups) are not Poincare duality groups and the complexes of curves of surfaces have infinite homotopy type (i.e. are not homotopy equivalent to a finite CW-complex).
This paper is devoted to the classification of the infinite families of Teichmuller curves generated by Prym eigenforms of genus 3 having a single zero. These curves were discovered by McMullen. The main invariants of our classification is the discriminant D of the corresponding quadratic order, and the generators of this order. It turns out that for D sufficiently large, there are two Teichmueller curves when D=1 modulo 8, only one Teichmueller curve when D=0,4 modulo 8, and no Teichmueller curves when D=5 modulo 8. For small values of D, where this classification is not necessarily true, the…
We compute the class of arithmetic genus two Teichmueller curves in the Picard group of pseudo-Hilbert modular surfaces, distinguished according to their torsion order and spin invariant. As an application, we compute the number of genus two square-tiled surfaces with these invariants. The main technical tool is the computation of divisor classes of Hilbert Jacobi forms on the universal abelian surface over the pseudo-Hilbert modular surface.
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.
We define and study metrics and weak metrics on the Teichmueller space of a surface of topologically finite type with boundary. These metrics and weak metrics are associated to the hyperbolic length spectrum of simple closed curves and of properly embedded arcs in the surface. We give a comparison between the defined metrics on regions of Teichmueller space which we call $\varepsilon_0$-relative $ε$-thick parts} for $ε>0$ and $\varepsilon_0\geq ε>0$.
In the moduli space M_g of genus g Riemann surfaces, consider the locus RM_O of Riemann surfaces whose Jacobians have real multiplication by the order O in a totally real number field F of degree g. If g = 2 or 3, we compute the closure of RM_O in the Deligne-Mumford compactification of M_g and the closure of the locus of eigenforms over RM_O in the Deligne-Mumford compactification of the moduli space of holomorphic one-forms. For higher genera, we give strong necessary conditions for a stable curve to be in the boundary of RM_O Boundary strata of RM_O are parameterized by configurations of el…
In this work, we study the asymptotic geometry of the mapping class group and Teichmueller space. We introduce tools for analyzing the geometry of `projection' maps from these spaces to curve complexes of subsurfaces; from this we obtain information concerning the topology of their asymptotic cones. We deduce several applications of this analysis. One of which is that the asymptotic cone of the mapping class group of any surface is tree-graded in the sense of Drutu and Sapir; this tree-grading has several consequences including answering a question of Drutu and Sapir concerning relatively hype…
Fuchsian groups with a modular embedding have the richest arithmetic properties among non-arithmetic Fuchsian groups. But they are very rare, all known examples being related either to triangle groups or to Teichmueller curves. In Part I of this paper we study the arithmetic properties of the modular embedding and develop from scratch a theory of twisted modular forms for Fuchsian groups with a modular embedding, proving dimension formulas, coefficient growth estimates and differential equations. In Part II we provide a modular proof for an Apery-like integrality statement for solutions of Pic…
From a simple observation about a construction of Thurston, we derive several interesting facts about subgroups of the mapping class group generated by two positive multi-twists. In particular, we identify all configurations of curves for which the corresponding groups fail to be free, and show that a subset of these determine the same set of Teichmueller curves as the non-obtuse lattice triangles which were classified by Kenyon, Smillie, and Puchta. We also identify a pseudo-Anosov automorphism whose dilatation is Lehmer's number, and show that this is minimal for the groups under considerati…
We consider some metrics and weak metrics defined on the Teichmueller space of a surface of finite type with nonempty boundary, that are defined using the hyperbolic length spectrum of simple closed curves and of properly embedded arcs, and we compare these metrics and weak metrics with the Teichmüller metric. The comparison is on subsets of Teichmüller space which we call "$ε_0$-relative $ε$-thick parts", and whose definition depends on the choice of some positive constants $ε_0$ and $ε$. Meanwhile, we give a formula for the Teichmüller metric of a surface with boundary in terms of extremal l…
We characterize which cobounded quasigeodesics in the Teichmueller space T of a closed surface are at bounded distance from a geodesic. More generally, given a cobounded lipschitz path gamma in T, we show that gamma is a quasigeodesic with finite Hausdorff distance from some geodesic if and only if the canonical hyperbolic plane bundle over gamma is a hyperbolic metric space. As an application, for complete hyperbolic 3-manifolds N with finitely generated, freely indecomposable fundamental group and with bounded geometry, we give a new construction of model geometries for the geometrically inf…
This paper focuses on the interplay between the intersection theory and the Teichmueller dynamics on the moduli space of curves. As applications, we study the cycle class of strata of the Hodge bundle, present an algebraic method to calculate the class of the divisor parameterizing abelian differentials with a non-simple zero, and verify a number of extremal effective divisors on the moduli space of pointed curves in low genus.
We estimate the distance in the curve graph of a surface S of finite type using Teichmueller geodesics and assuming to be able to detect curves of distance at least three.
We prove that the moduli space of compact genus three Riemann surfaces contains only finitely many algebraically primitive Teichmueller curves. For the stratum consisting of holomorphic one-forms in genus three with a single zero, our approach to finiteness uses the Harder-Narasimhan filtration of the Hodge bundle over a Teichmueller curve to obtain new information on the locations of the zeros of eigenforms. By passing to the boundary of moduli space, this gives explicit constraints on the cusps of Teichmueller curves in terms of cross-ratios of six points on a projective line. These constrai…
We show that for many strata of Abelian differentials in low genus the sum of Lyapunov exponents for the Teichmueller geodesic flow is the same for all Teichmueller curves in that stratum, hence equal to the sum of Lyapunov exponents for the whole stratum. This behavior is due to the disjointness property of Teichmueller curves with various geometrically defined divisors on moduli spaces of curves.
We prove the Farrell-Jones Conjecture for mapping class groups. The proof uses the Masur-Minsky theory of the large scale geometry of mapping class groups and the geometry of the thick part of Teichmueller space. The proof is presented in an axiomatic setup, extending the projection axioms of Bestvina-Bromberg-Fujiwara. More specifically, we prove that the action of the mapping class group on the Thurston compactification of Teichmueller space is finitely F-amenable for the family F consisting of virtual point stabilizers.
Usually, the description of tangent spaces to the Teichmueller space $\mathscr{T}(Σ_{g})$ of a compact Riemann surface $Σ_{g}$ of genus $g \geq 2$ (which we can identify with the quotient space $\mathbb{H}^{2} / Γ_{g}$ of the upper half plane $\mathbb{H}^{2}$ by a discrete cocompact subgroup $Γ_{g}$ of $\mathrm{PSL}(2, \mathbb{R})$) comes in two different flavours: the space of holomorphic quadratic differentials on $Σ_{g}$ which are holomorphic sections of the tensor square of the canonical line bundle of $Σ_{g}$ and the first cohomology group $H^{1}(Γ_{g}; \mathfrak{g})$ of the fundamental g…
We give an algebraic way of distinguishing the components of the exceptional strata of quadratic differentials in genus three and four. The complete list of these strata is (9, -1), (6,3,-1), (3,3,3, -1) in genus three and (12), (9,3), (6,6), (6,3,3) and (3,3,3,3) in genus four. This result is part of a more general investigation of disjointness of Teichmueller curves with divisors of Brill-Noether type on the moduli space of curves. As a result we show that for many strata of quadratic differentials in low genus the sum of Lyapunov exponents for the Teichmueller geodesic flow is the same for …
We prove that if the Lyapunov spectrum of the Kontsevich-Zorich cocycle over an affine SL$(2,\mathbb{R})$-invariant submanifold is completely degenerate, i.e. $λ_2 = \cdots = λ_g = 0$, then the submanifold must be an arithmetic Teichmueller curve in the moduli space of Abelian differentials over surfaces of genus three, four, or five. As a corollary, we prove that there are at most finitely many such Teichmueller curves.
Infinite presentations are given for all of the higher Torelli groups of once-punctured surfaces. In the case of the classical Torelli group, a finite presentation of the corresponding groupoid is also given, and finite presentations of the classical Torelli groups acting trivially on homology modulo N are derived for all N. Furthermore, the first Johnson homomorphism, which is defined from the classical Torelli group to the third exterior power of the homology of the surface, is shown to lift to an explicit canonical 1-cocycle of the Teichmueller space. The main tool for these results is the …
In 1969, P. Deligne and D. Mumford compactified the moduli space of curves. Their compactification is a projective algebraic variety, and as such, it has an underlying analytic structure. Alternatively, the quotient of the augmented Teichmueller space by the action of the mapping class group gives a compactification of the moduli space. We put an analytic structure on this compact quotient and prove that with respect to this structure, it is canonically isomorphic (as an analytic space) to the Deligne-Mumford compactification.
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.
Artin groups of finite type are not as well understood as braid groups. This is due to the additional geometric properties of braid groups coming from their close connection to mapping class groups. For each Artin group of finite type, we construct a space (simplicial complex) analogous to Teichmueller space that satisfies a weak nonpositive curvature condition and also a space "at infinity" analogous to the space of projective measured laminations. Using these constructs, we deduce several group-theoretic properties of Artin groups of finite type that are well-known in the case of braid group…
We study the topology of a space parametrizing stable tropical curves of genus g with volume 1, showing that its reduced rational homology is canonically identified with both the top weight cohomology of M_g and also with the genus g part of the homology of Kontsevich's graph complex. Using a theorem of Willwacher relating this graph complex to the Grothendieck-Teichmueller Lie algebra, we deduce that H^{4g-6}(M_g;Q) is nonzero for g=3, g=5, and g at least 7. This disproves a recent conjecture of Church, Farb, and Putman as well as an older, more general conjecture of Kontsevich. We also give …
A Teichmüller curve is an algebraic and isometric immersion of an algebraic curve into the moduli space of Riemann surfaces. We give the first explicit algebraic models of Teichmüller curves of positive genus. Our methods are based on the study of certain Hilbert modular forms and the use of Ahlfors's variational formula to identify eigenforms for real multiplication on genus two Jacobians. We also present evidence that Teichmüller curves admit a rich arithmetic geometry by exhibiting examples with small primes of bad reduction and notable divisors supported at their cusps.
We investigate the geometry of the graphs of nonseparating curves for surfaces of finite positive genus with potentially infinitely many punctures. This graph has infinite diameter and is known to be Gromov hyperbolic by work of the author. We study finite covers between such surfaces and show that lifts of nonseparating curves to the nonseparating curve graph of the cover span quasiconvex subgraphs which are infinite diameter and not coarsely equal to the nonseparating curve graph of the cover. In the finite type case, we also reprove a theorem of Hamenstädt identifying the Gromov boundary wi…