We study Veech surfaces of genus 2 arising from quadratic differentials that are not squares of abelian differentials. We prove that all such surfaces of type (2,2) and (2,1,1) are arithmetic. In (1,1,1,1) case, we reduce the question to abelian differentials of type (2,2) on hyperelliptic genus 3 surfaces with singularities at Weierstrass points, and we give an example of a non-arithmetic Veech surface.
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.
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 …
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 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.
In this paper we consider the large genus asymptotics for two classes of Siegel-Veech constants associated with an arbitrary connected stratum $\mathcal{H} (α)$ of Abelian differentials. The first is the saddle connection Siegel-Veech constant $c_{\text{sc}}^{m_i, m_j} \big( \mathcal{H} (α) \big)$ counting saddle connections between two distinct, fixed zeros of prescribed orders $m_i$ and $m_j$, and the second is the area Siegel-Veech constant $c_{\text{area}} \big( \mathcal{H}(α) \big)$ counting maximal cylinders weighted by area. By combining a combinatorial analysis of explicit formulas of …
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 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.
Quasimodular forms were first studied in the context of counting torus coverings. Here we show that a weighted version of these coverings with Siegel-Veech weights also provides quasimodular forms. We apply this to prove conjectures of Eskin and Zorich on the large genus limits of Masur-Veech volumes and of Siegel-Veech constants. In Part I we connect the geometric definition of Siegel-Veech constants both with a combinatorial counting problem and with intersection numbers on Hurwitz spaces. We introduce modified Siegel-Veech weights whose generating functions will later be shown to be quasimo…
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…
We state conjectures on the asymptotic behavior of the volumes of moduli spaces of Abelian differentials and their Siegel-Veech constants as genus tends to infinity. We provide certain numerical evidence, describe recent advances and the state of the art towards proving these conjectures.
We present an explicit formula relating volumes of strata of meromorphicquadratic differentials with at most simple poles on Riemann surfacesand counting functions of the number of flat cylinders filled by closedgeodesics in associated flat metric with singularities. This generalizes the resultof Athreya, Eskin and Zorich in genus 0 to higher genera.
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 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…
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 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…
We show that every surface in H^hyp(4) is either a Veech surface or a generic surface, i.e. its GL^+(2,R)-orbit is either a closed or a dense subset of H^hyp(4) . The proof develops new techniques applicable in general to the problem of classifying orbit closures, especially in low genus. Recent results of Eskin-Mirzakhani-Mohammadi, Avila-Eskin-Möller, and the second author are used. Combined with work of Matheus and the second author, a corollary is that there are at most finitely many non-arithmetic Teichmüller curves (closed orbits of surfaces not covering the torus) in H^hyp(4).
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 …
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
We calculate the Euler characteristics of all of the Teichmuller curves in the moduli space of genus two Riemann surfaces which are generated by holomorphic one-forms with a single double zero. These curves can all be embedded in Hilbert modular surfaces and our main result is that the Euler characteristic of a Teichmuller curve is proportional to the Euler characteristic of the Hilbert modular surface on which it lies. The idea is to use techniques from algebraic geometry to calculate the fundamental classes of these Teichmuller curves in certain compactifications of the Hilbert modular surfa…
In this paper we prove genus bounds for closed embedded minimal surfaces in a closed 3-dimensional manifold constructed via min-max arguments. A stronger estimate was announced by Pitts and Rubistein but to our knowledge its proof has never been published. Our proof follows ideas of Simon and uses an extension of a famous result of Meeks, Simon and Yau on the convergence of minimizing sequences of isotopic surfaces. This result is proved in the second part of the paper.
We prove optimal genus bounds for minimal surfaces arising from the min-max construction of Simon-Smith. This confirms a conjecture made by Pitts-Rubinstein in 1986.
A complete description of the global monodromy of a Lefschetz fibration arising from the Fermat surface of degree 4 is given. As a by-product we get a positive relation among right hand Dehn twists in the mapping class group of a closed orientable surface of genus 3.
In this paper, we investigate the closure of a large class of Teichmüller discs in the stratum Q(1,1,1,1) or equivalently, in a GL^+_2(R)-invariant locus L of translation surfaces of genus three. We describe a systematic way to prove that the GL^+_2(R)-orbit closure of a translation surface in L is the whole of L. The strategy of the proof is an analysis of completely periodic directions on such a surface and an iterated application of Ratner's theorem to unipotent subgroups acting on an ``adequate'' splitting. This analysis applies for example to all Teichmueller discs stabilized obtained by …
For every integer g, we construct a 2-solvable and 2-bipolar knot whose topological 4-genus is greater than g. Note that 2-solvable knots are in particular algebraically slice and have vanishing Casson-Gordon obstructions. Similarly all known smooth 4-genus bounds from gauge theory and Floer homology vanish for 2-bipolar knots. Moreover, our knots bound smoothly embedded height four gropes in $D^4$, an a priori stronger condition than being 2-solvable. We use new lower bounds for the 4-genus arising from $L^{(2)}$-signature defects associated to meta-metabelian representations of the fundament…
We prove that the Teichmueller disc stabilized by the Arnoux-Yoccoz pseudo-Anosov diffeomorphism contains at least two closed Teichmueller geodesics. This proves that the corresponding flat surface does not have a cyclic Veech group. In addition, we prove that this Teichmueller disc is dense inside the hyperelliptic locus of the connected component H^odd(2,2). The proof uses Ratner's theorems. Rephrasing our results in terms of quadratic differentials, we show that there exists a holomorphic quadratic differential, on a genus 2 surface, with the two following properties. (1) The Teichmueller d…
We study modular fibers of elliptic differentials, which are roughly spaces of torus-coverings over a fixed base torus. For genus 2 torus covers with fixed degree we show, that the modular fibers F_d(1,1) are itself connected torus covers with Veech group SL_2(Z). Using results of Eskin, Masur and Schmoll we calculate the Euler Characteristic and the parity of the spin structure of the quadratic differential (F_d(1,1)/(-id),q_d). We state and apply formulas for the asymptotic quadratic growth rates of various types of geodesic segments on a surface S "contained" in F_d(1,1). The quadratic grow…
We use technology from sutured manifold theory and the theory of Heegaard splittings to relate genus reducing crossing changes on knots in S^3 to twists on surfaces arising in circular Heegaard splittings for knot complements. In a separate paper, currently in preparation, we prove that these circular Heegaard splittings may be searched for algorithmically, and together our results imply that an algorithm to detect when two hyperbolic or fibered knots of different genus are related by a crossing change would follow from an algorithm to determine whether two compact oriented surfaces in S^3 are…
We classify all torsion-free derived arithmetic Fuchsian groups of genus two by commensurability class. In particular, we show that there exist no such groups arising from quaternion algebras over number fields of degree greater than 5. We also prove some results on the existence and form of maximal orders for a class of quaternion algebras related to these groups. Using these results in conjunction with a computer program, one can determine an explicit set of generators for each derived arithmetic Fuchsian group containing a torsion-free subgroup of genus two. We show this for a number of exa…
We provide obstructions to a link in $S^3$ arising as the cross section of any number of unlinked spheres in $S^4$. Our obstructions arise from the multivariable signature, the Blanchfield form and generalised Seifert matrices. We also obtain obstructions in the case of surfaces of higher genera, leading to a lower bound on the doubly slice genus of links.
We prove the filling area conjecture in the hyperelliptic case. In particular, we establish the conjecture for all genus 1 fillings of the circle, extending P. Pu's result in genus 0. We translate the problem into a question about closed ovalless real surfaces. The conjecture then results from a combination of two ingredients. On the one hand, we exploit integral geometric comparison with orbifold metrics of constant positive curvature on real surfaces of even positive genus. Here the singular points are Weierstrass points. On the other hand, we exploit an analysis of the combinatorics on unio…
We prove that if a contact 3-manifold admits an open book decomposition of genus 0, a certain intersection pattern cannot appear in the homology of any of its minimal symplectic fillings, and moreover, fillings cannot contain symplectic surfaces of positive genus. Applying these obstructions to canonical contact structures on links of normal surface singularities, we show that links of isolated singularities of surfaces in the complex 3-space are planar only in the case of $A_n$-singularities. In general, we characterize completely planar links of normal surface singularities (in terms of thei…
