Let $S$ be a closed orientable surface with genus $g\geq 2$. For a sequence $\s_i$ in the Teichmüller space of $S$, which converges to a projective measured lamination $[\lam]$ in the Thurston boundary, we obtain a relation between $\lam$ and the geometric limit of pants decompositions whose lengths are uniformly bounded by a Bers constant $L$. We also show that this bounded pants decomposition is related to the Gromov boundary of complex of curves.
The aim of this paper is to relate Thurston's metric on Teichmüller space to several ideas initiated by T. Sorvali on isomorphisms between Fuchsian groups. In particular, this will give a new formula for Thurston's asymmetric metric for surfaces with punctures. We also update some results of Sorvali on boundary isomorphisms of Fuchsian groups.
The Teichmüller space $\mathcal{T}(Σ)$ of a surface $Σ$ is equipped with Thurston's asymmetric metric. Stretch lines are oriented geodesics for this metric on $\mathcal{T}(Σ)$. We give the asymptotic behavior of the lengths of the measured geodesic laminations as one follows a stretch line in the positive direction.
We show that the Teichmüller space of a surface without boundary and with punctures, equipped with Thurston's metric is the limit (in an appropriate sense) of Teichmüller spaces of surfaces with boundary, equipped with their arc metrics, when the boundary lengths tend to zero. We use this to obtain a result on the translation distances for mapping classes for their actions on Teichmüller spaces equipped with their arc metrics.
Let $X_0$ be a complete borderless infinite area hyperbolic surface. We introduce Thurston's boundary to the Teichmüller space $T(X_0)$ of the surface $X_0$ using Liouville (geodesic) currents. Thurston's boundary to $T(X_0)$ is identified with the space $PML_{bdd}(X_0)$ of projective bounded measured laminations on $X_0$ which naturally extends Thurston's result for closed surfaces. Moreover, the quasiconformal mapping class group $MCG_{qc}(X_0)$ acts continuously on the closure $T(X_0)\cup PML_{bdd}(X_0)$.
We highlight several analogies between the Finsler (infinitesimal) properties of Teichmüller's metric and Thurston's asymmetric metric on Teichmüller space. Thurston defined his asymmetric metric in analogy with Teichmüllers' metric, as a solution to an extremal problem, which consists, in the case of the asymmetric metric, of finding the best Lipschitz maps in the hoomotopy class of homeomorphisms between two hyperbolic surface. (In the Teichmüller metric case, one searches for the best quasiconformal map between two conformal surfaces.) It turns out also that some properties of Thurston's as…
Let $X$ be an infinite geodesically complete hyperbolic surface which can be decomposed into geodesic pairs of pants. We introduce Thurston's boundary to the Teichmüller space $T(X)$ of the surface $X$ using the length spectrum analogous to Thurston's construction for finite surfaces. Thurston's boundary using the length spectrum of $X$ is a "closure" of projective bounded measured laminations $PML_{bdd} (X)$, and it coincides with $PML_{bdd}(X)$ when $X$ can be decomposed into a countable union of geodesic pairs of pants whose boundary geodesics $\{α_n\}_{n\in\mathbb{N}}$ have lengths pinched…
Thurston's boundary to the universal Teichmüller space $T(\mathbb{D})$ is the space $PML_{bdd}(\mathbb{D})$ of projective bounded measured laminations of $\mathbb{D}$. A geodesic ray in $T(\mathbb{D})$ is of Teichmüller type if it shrinks vertical foliation of an integrable holomorphic quadratic differential. In a prior work we established that each Teichmüller geodesic ray limits to a multiple (by the reciprocal of the length of the leaves) of vertical foliation of the quadratic differential. Certain non-integrable holomorphic quadratic differential induce geodesic rays and we consider their …
We study the geometry of the Thurston metric on Teichmuller space by examining its geodesics and comparing them to Teichmuller geodesics. We show that, similar to a Teichmuller geodesic, the shadow of a Thurston geodesic to the curve graph is a reparametrized quasi-geodesic. However, we show that the set of short curves along the two geodesics are not identical.
We show that the length function of a measured geodesic lamination is convex in Thurston's shear coordinates over Teichmüller space and strictly convex for generic laminations. We give some consequences of this result in the context of Thurston's asymmetric metric on Teichmüller space.
In this paper we prove that for all $n=4k-2$, $k\ge2$ there exists closed $n$-dimensional Riemannian manifolds $M$ with negative sectional curvature that do not have the homotopy type of a locally symmetric space, such that $π_{1}(\mathcal{T}^{<0}(M))$ is non-trivial. $\mathcal{T}^{<0}(M)$ denotes the Teichmüller space of all negatively curved Riemannian metrics on $M$, which is the topological quotient of the space of all negatively curved metrics modulo the space of self-diffeomorphisms of $M$ that are homotopic to the identity. Gromov Thurston branched cover manifolds provide examples of ne…
We study the action of the elements of the mapping class group of a surface of finite type on the Teichmüller space of that surface equipped with Thurston's asymmetric metric. We classify such actions as elliptic, parabolic, hyperbolic and pseudo-hyperbolic, depending on whether the translation distance of such an element is zero or positive and whether the value of this translation distance is attained or not, and we relate these four types to Thurston's classification of mapping classes. The study is parallel to the one made by Bers in the setting of Teichmüller space equipped with Teichmüll…
We show that every $\mathbb R$-linear surjective isometry between the cotangent spaces to the Teichmüller space equipped with the Thurston norm is induced by some isometry between the underlying hyperbolic surfaces, which is an analogue of Royden's theorem concerning the Teichmüller metric.
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.
For a compact surface $X_0$, Thurston introduced a compactification of its Teichmüller space $\mathcal T(X_0)$ by completing it with a boundary $\mathcal{PML}(X_0)$ consisting of projective measured geodesic laminations. We introduce a similar bordification for the Teichmüller space $\mathcal T(X_0)$ of a noncompact Riemann surface $X_0$, using the technical tool of geodesic currents. The lack of compactness requires the introduction of certain uniformity conditions which were unnecessary for compact surfaces. A technical step, providing a convergence result for earthquake paths in $\mathcal T…
Let $φ:\mathbb{D}\to\mathbb{C}$ be an integrable holomorphic function on the unit disk $\mathbb{D}$ and $D_φ:\mathbb{D}\to T(\mathbb{D})$ the Teichmüller disk in the universal Teichmüller space $T(\mathbb{D})$. For a positive $t$ it is known that $D_φ(t)\to [μ_φ]\in PML_b(\mathbb{D})$ as $t\to 1$, where $μ_φ$ is a bounded measured lamination representing a point on the Thurston boundary of $T(\mathbb{D})$. We extend this result by showing that $D_φ\colon \mathbb{D}\to T(\mathbb{D})$ extends as a continuous map from the closed disk $\overline{\mathbb{D}}$ to the Thurston bordification. In addit…
Thurston obtained a classification of individual surface homeomorphisms via the dynamics of the corresponding mapping class elements on Teichmüller space. In this paper we present certain extended versions of this, first, to random products of homeomorphisms and second, to holomorphic self-maps of Teichmüller spaces.
Thurston's boundary to the universal Teichmüller space $T(\mathbb{H})$ is the set of asymptotic rays to the embedding of $T(\mathbb{H})$ in the space of geodesic currents; the boundary is identified with the projective bounded measured laminations $PML_{bdd}(\mathbb{H})$ of $\mathbb{H}$. We prove that each Teichmüller geodesic ray in $T(\mathbb{H})$ has a unique limit point in Thurston's boundary to $T(\mathbb{H})$ unlike in the case of closed surfaces.
The Dynnikov coordinate system puts global coordinates on the boundary of Teichmüller space of an $n$--punctured disk. We survey the Dynnikov coordinate system, and investigate how we use this coordinate system to study pseudo--Anosov braids making use of results from Thurston's theory on surface homeomorphisms.
We study the geometry of hyperbolic cone surfaces, possibly with cusps or geodesic boundaries. We prove that any hyperbolic cone structure on a surface of non-exceptional type is determined up to isotopy by the geodesic lengths of a finite specific homotopy classes of non-peripheral simple closed curves. As an application, we show that the Thurston asymmetric metric is well-defined on the Teichmüller space of hyperbolic cone surfaces with fixed cone angles and boundary lengths. We compare such a Teichmüller space with the Teichmüller space of complete hyperbolic surfaces with punctures, by sho…
We investigate a metric structure on the Thurston boundary of Teichmüller space. To do this, we develop tools in sup metrics and apply Minsky's theorem.
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 consider a quotient space of the Bers boundary of Teichmüller space, which we call the reduced Bers boundary, by collapsing each quasi-conformal deformation space into a point. This reduced Bers boundary turns out to be independent of the basepoint, and the action of the mapping class group on the Teichmüller space extends continuously to this boundary. We show that every auto-homeomorphism on the reduced Bers boundary comes from an extended mapping class. We also give a way to determine the limit in the reduced Bers boundary up to some ambiguity for parabolic curves for a given sequence in…
We show that the horofunction boundary of Teichmüller space with Thurston's Lipschitz metric is the same as the Thurston boundary. We use this to determine the isometry group of the Lipschitz metric, apart from in some exceptional cases. We also show that the Teichmüller spaces of different surfaces, when endowed with this metric, are not isometric, again with some possible exceptions of low genus.
Considering the Teichmüller space of a surface equipped with Thurston's Lipschitz metric, we study geodesic segments whose endpoints have bounded combinatorics. We show that these geodesics are cobounded, and that the closest-point projection to these geodesics is strongly contracting. Consequently, these geodesics are stable. Our main tool is to show that one can get a good estimate for the Lipschitz distance by considering the length ratio of finitely many curves.
We define a compactification of symmetric spaces of noncompact type, seen as spaces of isometry classes of marked lattices, analogous to the Thurston compactification of the Teichmüller space, and we show that it is equivariantly isomorphic to a Satake compactification. We then use it to define a new compactification of the Torelli space of a hyperbolic surface with marked points, and we show that it is equivariantly isomorphic to the Satake compactification of the image of the period mapping. Finally, we describe the natural stratification of a subset of the boundary.
We study the geometry of the Thurston metric on the Teichmüller space $\mathcal{T}(S)$ of hyperbolic structures on a surface $S$. Some of our results on the coarse geometry of this metric apply to arbitrary surfaces $S$ of finite type; however, we focus particular attention on the case where the surface is a once-punctured torus, $S_{1,1}$. In that case, our results provide a detailed picture of the infinitesimal, local, and global behavior of the geodesics of the Thurston metric, as well as an analogue of Royden's theorem.
Based on the action of the mapping class group on the space of measured foliations, we construct a new boundary of the mapping class group and study the structure of this boundary. As an application, for any point in Teichmuller space, we consider the orbit of this point under the action of the mapping class group and describe the closure of this orbit in the Thurston compactification and the Gardiner-Masur compactification of Teichmuller space. We also construct some new points in the Gardiner-Masur boundary of Teichmuller space.
We show that for every simple closed curve α, the extremal length and the hyperbolic length of αare quasi-convex functions along any Teichmuller geodesic. As a corollary, we conclude that, in Teichmuller space equipped with the Teichmuller metric, balls are quasi- convex.
Using the Birmanexact sequence for pure mapping class groups, we construct a universal Cannon--Thurston map onto the boundary of a curve complex for a surface with punctures we call surviving curve complex. Along the way we prove hyperbolicity of this complex and identify its boundary as a space of laminations. As a corollary we obtain a universal Cannon--Thurston map to the boundary of the ordinary curve complex, extending earlier work of the second author with Mj and Schleimer.
In this paper we study the boundary at infinity of the curve complex $\mathcal{C}(S)$ of a surface $S$ of finite type and the relative Teichmüller space $\mathcal{T}_{el}(S)$ obtained from the Teichmüller space by collapsing each region where a simple closed curve is short to be a set of diameter 1. $\mathcal{C}(S)$ and $\mathcal{T}_{el}(S)$ are quasi-isometric, and Masur-Minsky have shown that $\mathcal{C}(S)$ and $\mathcal{T}_{el}(S)$ are hyperbolic in the sense of Gromov. We show that the boundary at infinity of $\mathcal{C}(S)$ and $\mathcal{T}_{el}(S)$ is the space of topological equivale…
We provide analogues for non-orientable surfaces with or without boundary or punctures of several basic theorems in the setting of the Thurston theory of surfaces which were developed so far only in the case of orientable surfaces. Namely, we provide natural analogues for non-orientable surfaces of the Fenchel-Nielsen theorem on the parametrization of the Teichmüller space of the surface, the Dehn-Thurston theorem on the parametrization of measured foliations in the surface, and the Hatcher-Thurston theorem, which gives a complete minimal set of moves between pair of pants decompositions of th…
In this paper we prove that for all $n=4k-2$, $k\ge2$ there exists a closed smooth complex hyperbolic manifold $M$ with real dimension $n$ having non-trivial $π_1(\mathcal{T}^{<0}(M))$. $\mathcal{T}^{<0}(M)$ denotes the Teichmüller space of all negatively curved Riemannian metrics on $M$, which is the topological quotient of the space of all negatively curved metrics modulo the space of self-diffeomorphisms of $M$ that are homotopic to the identity.
We show that the action of the mapping class group on the space of closed curves of a closed surface effectively tracks the corresponding action on Teichmüller space in the following sense: for all but quantitatively few mapping classes, the information of how a mapping class moves a given point of Teichmüller space determines, up to a power saving error term, how it changes the geometric intersection numbers of a given closed curve with respect to arbitrary geodesic currents. Applications include an effective estimate describing the speed of convergence of Teichmüller geodesic rays to the bou…
In this paper, we investigate the structure of the Gardiner-Masur boundary of Teichmuller space. Indeed, we will give a geometric description of boundary comparing to the Duchin-Leininger-Rafi compactification of the space of singular flat structures. We will obtain the coincidence between the Gardiner-Masur boundary and the Thurston boundary at the projective classes of uniquely ergodic measured foliations. We also study the action of the mapping class group on the Gardiner-Masur boundary and characterize the elements by fixed points. This paper has been withdrawn by the author. This paper wi…
Given $ϕ$ a pseudo-Anosov map, let $\ell_\mathcal{T}(ϕ)$ denote the translation length of $ϕ$ in the Teichmüller space, and let $\ell_\mathcal{C}(ϕ)$ denote the stable translation length of $ϕ$ in the curve graph. Gadre--Hironaka--Kent--Leininger showed that, as a function of Euler characteristic $χ(S)$, the minimal possible ratio $τ(ϕ) = \frac{\ell_\mathcal{T}(ϕ)}{\ell_\mathcal{C}(ϕ)}$ is $\log(|χ(S)|)$, up to uniform additive and multiplicative constants. In this short note, we introduce a new construction of such ratio optimizers and demonstrate their abundance in the mapping class group. F…
The Hitchin component is a connected component of the character variety of reductive group homomorphisms from the fundamental group of a closed surface S of genus greater than 1 to the Lie group PSL_m(R). The Teichmuller space of S naturally embeds into the Hitchin component. The limit points in the Thurston compactification of the Teichmuller space are well-understood. Our main goal is to provide non-trivial sufficient conditions on a sequence of Hitchin representations so that the limit of this sequence in the Parreau boundary can be described as an action on a tree. These non-trivial condit…
