This paper concerns a family of pseudo-Anosov braids with dilatations arbitrarily close to one. The associated graph maps and train tracks have stable "star-like" shapes, and the characteristic polynomials of their transition matrices form Salem-Boyd sequences. These examples show that the logarithms of least dilatations of pseudo-Anosov braids on $2g+1$ strands are bounded above by $\log(2 + \sqrt{3})/g$. It follows that the asymptotic behavior of least dilatations of pseudo-Anosov, hyperelliptic surface homeomorphisms is identical to that found by Penner for general surface homeomorphisms. The family includes pseudo-Anosov braids with minimum dilatation for 3,4, and 5 strands; the latter according to a recent anouncement of J.-Y. Ham and W.-T. Song [math.GT/0506295].
The dilatation of a pseudo-Anosov braid is a conjugacy invariant. In this paper, we study the dilatation of a special family of pseudo-Anosov braids. We prove an inductive formula to compute their dilatation, a monotonicity and an asymptotic behavior of the dilatation for this family of braids. We also give an example of a family of pseudo-Anosov braids with arbitrarily small dilatation such that the mapping torus obtained from such braid has 2 cusps and has an arbitrarily large volume.
In this paper, we give sufficient conditions for a Perron number, given as the leading eigenvalue of an aperiodic matrix, to be a pseudo-Anosov dilatation of a compact surface. We give an explicit construction of the surface and the map when the sufficient condition is met.
We find the minimum dilatation of pseudo-Anosov homeomorphisms that stabilize an orientable foliation on surfaces of genus three, four, or five, and provide a lower bound for genus six to eight. Our technique also simplifies Cho and Ham's proof of the least dilatation of pseudo-Anosov homeomorphisms on a genus two surface. For genus g=2 to 5, the mimimum dilatation is the smallest Salem number for polynomials of degree 2g.
The minimum dilatation of pseudo-Anosov 5-braids is shown to be the largest zero $λ_5 \approx 1.72208$ of $x^4 - x^3 - x^2 - x + 1$ which is attained by $σ_1σ_2σ_3σ_4σ_1σ_2$.
The main result of this paper is a universal finiteness theorem for the set of all small dilatation pseudo-Anosov homeomorphisms, ranging over all surfaces. More precisely, we consider pseudo-Anosovs F:S to S with |chi(S)| log(lambda(F)) bounded above by some constant, and we prove that, after puncturing the surfaces at the singular points of the stable foliations, the resulting set of mapping tori is finite. Said differently, there is a finite set of fibered hyperbolic 3-manifolds so that all small dilatation pseudo-Anosovs occur as the monodromy of a Dehn filling on one of the 3-manifolds in…
A filling curve $γ$ on a based surface $S$ determines a pseudo-Anosov homeomorphism $P(γ)$ of $S$ via the process of "point-pushing along $γ$." We consider the relationship between the self-intersection number $i(γ)$ of $γ$ and the dilatation of $P(γ)$; our main result is that the dilatation is bounded between $(i(γ)+1)^{1/5}$ and $9^{i(γ)}$. We also bound the least dilatation of any pseudo-Anosov in the point-pushing subgroup of a closed surface and prove that this number tends to infinity with genus. Lastly, we investigate the minimal entropy of any pseudo-Anosov homeomorphism obtained by pu…
Let $δ_{g,n}$ be the minimal dilatation of pseudo-Anosovs defined on an orientable surface of genus $g$ with $n$ punctures. Tsai proved that for any fixed $g \ge 2$, the logarithm of the minimal dilatation $\log δ_{g,n}$ is on the order of $\frac{\log n}{n}$. The main result of this paper is that if $2g+1$ is relatively prime to $s$ or $s+1$ for each $0 \le s \le g$, then $$\limsup_{n \to \infty} \frac{n \log δ_{g,n}}{\log n} \le 2.$$
The theme of this paper is that algebraic complexity implies dynamical complexity for pseudo-Anosov homeomorphisms of a closed surface S_g of genus g. Penner proved that the logarithm of the minimal dilatation for a pseudo-Anosov homeomorphism of S_g tends to zero at the rate 1/g. We consider here the smallest dilatation of any pseudo-Anosov homeomorphism of S_g acting trivially on Gamma/Gamma_k, the quotient of Gamma = pi_1(S_g) by the k-th term of its lower central series, k > 0. In contrast to Penner's asymptotics, we prove that this minimal dilatation is bounded above and below, independen…
In this note, we deduce a partial answer to the question in the title. In particular, we show that asymptotically almost all bi-Perron algebraic unit whose characteristic polynomial has degree at most $2n$ do not correspond to dilatations of pseudo-Anosov maps on a closed orientable surface of genus $n$ for $n\geq 10$. As an application of the argument, we also obtain a statement on the number of closed geodesics of the same length in the moduli space of area one abelian differentials for low genus cases.
This paper concerns the set $\hat{\mathcal{M}}$ of pseudo-Anosovs which occur as monodromies of fibrations on manifolds obtained from the magic 3-manifold $N$ by Dehn filling three cusps with a mild restriction. We prove that for each $g$ (resp. $g \not\equiv 0 \pmod{6}$), the minimum among dilatations of elements (resp. elements with orientable invariant foliations) of $\hat{\mathcal{M}}$ defined on a closed surface $\varSigma_g$ of genus $g$ is achieved by the monodromy of some $\varSigma_g$-bundle over the circle obtained from $N(\tfrac{3}{-2})$ or $N(\tfrac{1}{-2})$ by Dehn filling two cus…
This note gives a brief survey of the minimum dilatation problem for pseudo-Anosov mapping classes, and the first explicit train track description of an infinite family of pseudo-Anosov mapping classes with orientable stable foliations and the conjectural minimum dilatation for closed surfaces of even genus $g \ge 2$.
Answering a question of Farb-Leininger-Margalit, we give explicit lower bounds for the dilatations of pseudo-Anosov mapping classes lying in the kth term of the Johnson filtration of the mapping class group.
In this paper we study the minimum dilatation pseudo-Anosov mapping classes coming from fibrations over the circle of a single 3-manifold, the mapping torus for the "simplest pseudo-Anosov braid". The dilatations that arise include the minimum dilatations for orientable mapping classes for genus g=2,3,4,5,8 as well as Lanneau and Thiffeault's conjectural minima for orientable mapping classes, when g = 2,4 (mod 6). Our examples also show that the minimum dilatation for orientable mapping classes is strictly greater than the minimum dilatation for non-orientable ones when g = 4,6,8.
This paper describes a family of pseudo-Anosov braids with small dilatation. The smallest dilatations occurring for braids with 3, 4 and 5 strands appear in this family. A pseudo-Anosov braid with 2g+1 strands determines a hyperelliptic mapping class with the same dilatation on a genus-g surface. Penner showed that logarithms of least dilatations of pseudo-Anosov maps on a genus-g surface grow asymptotically with the genus like 1/g, and gave explicit examples of mapping classes with dilatations bounded above by log 11/g. Bauer later improved this bound to log 6/g. The braids in this paper give…
We prove that the dilatation of any pseudo-Anosov homeomorphism on a translation surface that belong to a hyperelliptic component is bounded from below uniformly by sqrt{2}. This is in contrast to Penner's asymptotic. Penner proved that the logarithm of the least dilatation of any pseudo-Anosov homeomorphism on a surface of genus g tends to zero at rate 1/g (as g goes to infinity). We also show that our uniform lower bound sqrt{2} is sharp. More precisely the least dilatation of a pseudo-Anosov on a genus g>1 translation surface in a hyperelliptic component belongs to the interval ]sqrt{2},sqr…
A relation between the dilatation of pseudo-Anosov braids and fixed point theory was studied by Ivanov. In this paper we reveal a new relationship between the above two subjects by showing a formula for the dilatation of pseudo-Anosov braids by means of the representations of braid groups due to B. Jiang and H. Zheng.
We consider the hyperelliptic handlebody group on a closed surface of genus $g$. This is the subgroup of the mapping class group on a closed surface of genus $g$ consisting of isotopy classes of homeomorphisms on the surface that commute with some fixed hyperelliptic involution and that extend to homeomorphisms on the handlebody. We prove that the logarithm of the minimal dilatation (i.e, the minimal entropy) of all pseudo-Anosov elements in the hyperelliptic handlebody group of genus $g$ is comparable to $1/g$. This means that the asymptotic behavior of the minimal pseudo-Anosov dilatation of…
Let $S_n$ be a punctured Riemann spheres $\mathbf{S}^2\backslash \{x_1,..., x_n\}$. In this paper, we investigate pseudo-Anosov maps on $S_n$ that are isotopic to the identity on $S_n\cup \{x_n\}$ and have the smallest possible dilatations. We show that those maps cannot be obtained from Thurston's construction (that is the products of two Dehn twists). We also prove that those pseudo-Anosov maps $f$ on $S_n$ with the minimum dilatations can never define a trivial mapping class as any puncture $x_i$ of $S_n$ is filled in. The main tool is to give both lower and upper bounds estimations for dil…
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.
For a surface $S$ with $n$ marked points and fixed genus $g\geq2$, we prove that the logarithm of the minimal dilatation of a pseudo-Anosov homeomorphism of $S$ is on the order of $(\log n)/n$. This is in contrast with the cases of genus zero or one where the order is $1/n$.
It has been known since 1981 that if one fixes an orientable surface $S$ of genus $g$, then there is a real number $λ_{min,g} > 1$ that is the dilatation of a pA diffeomorphism of $S$, and every other pA diffeomorphism of $S$ has dilatation $\geq λ_{min,g}$. We will show how a little-known theorem about digraphs gives some insight into $λ_{min,g}$.
Li-York theorem tells us that a period 3 orbit for a continuous map of the interval into itself implies the existence of a periodic orbit of every period. This paper concerns an analogue of the theorem for homeomorphisms of the 2-dimensional disk. In this case a periodic orbit is specified by a braid type and on the set of all braid types Boyland's dynamical partial order can be defined. We describe the partial order on a family of braids and show that a period 3 orbit of pseudo-Anosov braid type implies the Smale-horseshoe map which is a factor possessing complicated chaotic dynamics.
In this work we present a natural surjective map from rigid braids in B_3 (in Garside sense) to SL_2(N). This map provides an upper and a lower bound for the dilatation factor of a pseudo-Anosov 3-strand braid. These bounds only depend on the canonical length of the classical Garside structure of B_3.
We study the minimal dilatation of pseudo-Anosov pure surface braids and provide upper and lower bounds as a function of genus and the number of punctures. For a fixed number of punctures, these bounds tend to infinity as the genus does. We also bound the dilatation of pseudo-Anosov pure surface braids away from zero and give a constant upper bound in the case of a sufficient number of punctures.
We consider a hyperbolic surface bundle over the circle with the smallest known volume among hyperbolic manifolds having 3 cusps, so called "the magic manifold". We compute the entropy function on the fiber face of the unit ball with respect to the Thurston norm, determine homology classes whose representatives are genus 0 fiber surfaces, and describe their monodromies by braids. Among such homology classes whose representatives have n punctures, we decide which one realizes the minimal entropy. It turns out that all the braids with smallest known entropy are derived from monodromies for such …
For any nonorientable closed surface, we determine the minimal dilatation among pseudo-Anosov mapping classes arising from Penner's construction. We deduce that the sequence of minimal Penner dilatations has exactly two accumulation points, in contrast to the case of orientable surfaces where there is only one accumulation point. One of our key techniques is representing pseudo-Anosov dilatations as roots of Alexander polynomials of fibred links and comparing dilatations using the skein relation for Alexander polynomials.
We construct sequences of pseudo-Anosov mapping classes whose dilatations behave asymptotically like the inverse of the Euler characteristic of the surface they are defined on. These sequences are used to show that if the genus, g, and punctures, n, of a surface are related by a rational ray g=rn then the minimal dilatations behave asymptotically like the inverse of the Euler characteristic.
Let $δ_g$ be the minimal dilatation for pseudo-Anosovs on a closed surface $Σ_g$ of genus $g$ and let $δ_g^+$ be the minimal dilatation for pseudo-Anosovs on $Σ_g$ with orientable invariant foliations. This paper concerns the pseudo-Anosovs which occur as the monodromies on closed fibers for Dehn fillings of $N(r)$ for each $r \in \{-3/2, -1/2, 2\}$ of the magic manifold $N$. The manifold $N(-3/2)$ is homeomorphic to the Whitehead sister link exterior. We consider the set $Λ_g(r)$ (resp. $Λ_g^+(r)$) which consists of the dilatations of all monodromies (resp. monodromies having orientable invar…
An Agol cycle is a complete invariant of the conjugacy class of a pseudo-Anosov mapping class. We study necessary and sufficient conditions for equivalent Agol cycles of pseudo-Anosov 3-braids.
We find the minimum dilatation of pseudo-Anosov braids on n-punctured discs for 3 <= n <= 8. This covers the results of Song-Ko-Los (n=4) and Ham-Song (n=5). The proof is elementary, and uses the Lefschetz formula.
The topological entropy of a braid is the infimum of the entropies of all homeomorphisms of the disc which have a finite invariant set represented by the braid. When the isotopy class represented by the braid is pseudo-Anosov or is reducible with a pseudo-Anosov component, this entropy is positive. Fried and Kolev proved that the entropy is bounded below by the logarithm of the spectral radius of the braid's Burau matrix, $B(t)$, after substituting a complex number of modulus~1 in place of $t$. In this paper we show that for a pseudo-Anosov braid the estimate is sharp for the substitution of a…
We prove that generic elements of braid groups are pseudo-Anosov, in the following sense: in the Cayley graph of the braid group with n $\ge$ 3 strands, with respect to Garside's generating set, we prove that the proportion of pseudo-Anosov braids in the ball of radius l tends to 1 exponentially quickly as l tends to infinity. Moreover, with a similar notion of genericity, we prove that for generic pairs of elements of the braid group, the conjugacy search problem can be solved in quadratic time. The idea behind both results is that generic braids can be conjugated "easily" into a rigid braid.
Periodic solutions of the planar $N$-body problem determine braids through the trajectory of $N$ bodies. Braid types can be used to classify periodic solutions. According to the Nielsen-Thurston classification of surface automorphisms, braids fall into three types: periodic, reducible and pseudo-Anosov. To a braid of pseudo-Anosov type, there is an associated stretch factor greater than 1, and this is a conjugacy invariant of braids. In 2006, the third author discovered a family of multiple choreographic solutions of the planar $2n$-body problem. We prove that braids obtained from the solution…
We prove that, in the $l$-ball of the Cayley graph of the braid group with $n \geqslant 3$ strands, the proportion of rigid pseudo-Anosov braids is bounded below independently of $l$ by a positive value.
We investigate a phenomenon observed by W. Thurston wherein one constructs a pseudo-Anosov homeomorphism on the limit set of a certain lift of a piecewise-linear expanding interval map. We reconcile this construction with a special subclass of generalized pseudo-Anosovs, first defined by de Carvalho. From there we classify the circumstances under which this construction produces a pseudo-Anosov. As an application, we produce for each $g \geq 1$ a pseudo-Anosov $ϕ_g$ on the surface of genus $g$ that preserves an algebraically primitive translation structure and whose dilatation $λ_g$ is a Salem…
We show that an orientable pseudo-Anosov homeomorphism has vanishing Sah-Arnoux-Fathi invariant if and only if the minimal polynomial of its dilatation is not reciprocal. We relate this to works of Margalit-Spallone and Birman, Brinkmann and Kawamuro. Mainly, we use Veech's construction of pseudo-Anosov maps to give explicit pseudo-Anosov maps of vanishing Sah-Arnoux-Fathi invariant. In particular, we give new infinite families of such maps in genus 3.
We prove that the size of the super summit set of a braid can grow exponentially with the canonical length of the braid, even for pseudo-Anosov braids.
For each pseudo-Anosov map $ϕ$ on surface $S$, we will associate it with a $\mathbb{Q}$-submodule of $\mathbb{R}$, denoted by $A(S,ϕ)$. $A(S,ϕ)$ is defined by an interaction between the Thurston norm and dilatation of pseudo-Anosov maps. We will develop a few nice properties of $A(S,ϕ)$ and give a few examples to show that $A(S,ϕ)$ is a nontrivial invariant. These nontrivial examples give an answer to a question asked by McMullen: the minimal point of the restriction of the dilatation function on fibered face need not be a rational point.
We show that there is a family of pseudo-Anosov braids independently parameterized by the braid index and the (canonical) length whose smallest conjugacy invariant sets grow exponentially in the braid index and linearly in the length and conclude that the conjugacy problem remains exponential in the braid index under the current knowledge.
We show that the Liechti-Strenner's example for the closed nonorientable surface in \cite{LiechtiStrenner18} minimizes the dilatation within the class of pseudo-Anosov homeomorphisms with an orientable invariant foliation and all but the first coefficient of the characteristic polynomial of the action induced on the first cohomology nonpositive. We also show that the Liechti-Strenner's example of orientation-reversing homeomorphism for the closed orientable surface in \cite{LiechtiStrenner18} minimizes the dilatation within the class of pseudo-Anosov homeomorphisms with an orientable invariant…
We prove a new lower bound for the dilatation of an arbitrary pseudo-Anosov map on a surface of genus g with n punctures. Our bound improves the former super-exponential dependence on the genus by a polynomial dependence.
Let $b$ be a pseudo-Anosov braid whose permutation has a fixed point and let $M_b$ be the mapping torus by the pseudo-Anosov homeomorphism defined on the genus $0$ fiber $F_b$ associated with $b$. This paper describes a structure of the fibered cone $\mathcal{C}$ of $F$ for $M_b$. We prove that there is a $2$-dimensional subcone $\mathcal{C}_0$ contained in the fibered cone $ \mathcal{C}$ of $F_b$ such that the fiber $F_a$ for each primitive integral class $a \in \mathcal{C}_0$ has genus $0$. We also give a constructive description of the monodromy $ ϕ_a: F_a \rightarrow F_a$ of the fibration …
We show that the kernel of $Burau(4) \otimes Z_p$, the reduced Burau representation with coefficients in $Z_p$ of the 4-braid group $B_4$, consists only of pseudo-Anosov braids.
We study the magic manifold $N$ which is a hyperbolic and fibered $3$-manifold. We give an explicit construction of a fiber $F_a$ and its monodromy $:F_a \rightarrow F_a$ of the fibration associated to each fibered class $a$ of $N$. Let $δ_g$ (resp. $δ_g^+$) be the minimal dilatation of pseudo-Anosovs (resp. pseudo-Anosovs with orientable invariant foliations) defined on an orientable closed surface of genus $g$. As a consequence of our result, we obtain the first explicit construction of the following pseudo-Anosovs; a minimizer of $δ_7^+$ and conjectural minimizers of $δ_g$ for large $g$.
There are two objects naturally associated with a braid $β\in B_n$ of pseudo-Anosov type: a (relative) pseudo-Anosov homeomorphism $φ_β\colon S^2\to S^2$; and the finite volume complete hyperbolic structure on the 3-manifold $M_β$ obtained by excising the braid closure of $β$, together with its braid axis, from $S^3$. We show the disconnect between these objects, by exhibiting a family of braids $\{β_q:q\in{\mathbb{Q}}\cap(0,1/3]\}$ with the properties that: on the one hand, there is a fixed homeomorphism $φ_0\colon S^2\to S^2$ to which the (suitably normalized) homeomorphisms $φ_{β_{q}}$ conv…
We investigate the structure of the characteristic polynomial det(xI-T) of a transition matrix T that is associated to a train track representative of a pseudo-Anosov map [F] acting on a surface. As a result we obtain three new polynomial invariants of [F], one of them being the product of the other two, and all three being divisors of det(xI-T). The degrees of the new polynomials are invariants of [F ] and we give simple formulas for computing them by a counting argument from an invariant train track. We give examples of genus 2 pseudo-Anosov maps having the same dilatation, and use our invar…
In [J.Birman, V.Gebhardt, J.Gonzalez-Meneses, Conjugacy in Garside groups I: cyclings, powers and rigidity] authors asked: (open question 2) is the size of USS of a rigid pseudo-Anosov braid is bounded above by some polynomial in the number of strands and the braid length? We answer this question in the negative.
We propose an algorithm for deciding whether a given braid is pseudo-Anosov, reducible, or periodic. The algorithm is based on Garside's weighted decomposition and is polynomial-time in the word-length of an input braid. Moreover, a reduction system of circles can be found completely if the input is a certain type of reducible braids.
Since the set of volumes of hyperbolic 3-manifolds is well ordered, for each fixed g there is a genus-g surface bundle over the circle of minimal volume. Here, we introduce an explicit family of genus-g bundles which we conjecture are the unique such manifolds of minimal volume. Conditional on a very plausible assumption, we prove that this is indeed the case when g is large. The proof combines a soft geometric limit argument with a detailed Neumann-Zagier asymptotic formula for the volumes of Dehn fillings. Our examples are all Dehn fillings on the sibling of the Whitehead manifold, and we al…
Thurston's fibered face theory allows us to partition the set of pseudo-Anosov mapping classes on different compact oriented surfaces into subclasses with related dynamical behavior. This is done via a correspondence between the rational points on fibered faces in the first cohomology of a hyperbolic 3-manifold and the monodromies of fibrations of the 3-manifold over the circle. In this paper, we generalize examples of Penner, and define quotient families of mapping classes. We show that these mapping classes correspond to open linear sections of fibered faces. The construction gives a simple …
Let $M$ be a compact surface without boundary, and $n\geq 2$. We analyse the quotient group $B_n(M)/Γ_2(P_n(M))$ of the surface braid group $B_{n}(M)$ by the commutator subgroup $Γ_2(P_n(M))$ of the pure braid group $P_{n}(M)$. If $M$ is different from the $2$-sphere $\mathbb{S}^2$, we prove that $B_n(M)/Γ_2(P_n(M))$ is isomorphic rho $P_n(M)/Γ_2(P_n(M)) \rtimes_φ S_n$, and that $B_n(M)/Γ_2(P_n(M))$ is a crystallographic group if and only if $M$ is orientable. If $M$ is orientable, we prove a number of results regarding the structure of $B_n(M)/Γ_2(P_n(M))$. We characterise the finite-order el…
We use quantum invariants to define an analytic family of representations for the mapping class group of a punctured surface. The representations depend on a complex number A with |A| <= 1 and act on an infinite-dimensional Hilbert space. They are unitary when A is real or imaginary, bounded when |A|<1, and only densely defined when |A| = 1 and A is not a root of unity. When A is a root of unity distinct from 1, -1, i, -i the representations are finite-dimensional and isomorphic to the "Hom" version of the well-known TQFT quantum representations. The unitary representations in the interval [-1…
