We investigate the distribution of lengths obtained by intersecting a random geodesic with a geodesic lamination. We give an explicit formula for the distribution for the case of a maximal lamination and show that the distribution is independent of the surface and lamination. We also show how the moments of the distribution are related to the Riemann zeta function.
We construct Weil-Petersson (WP) geodesic rays with minimal filling non-uniquely ergodic ending lamination which are recurrent to a compact subset of the moduli space of Riemann surfaces. This construction shows that an analogue of the Masur's criterion for Teichmüller geodesics does not hold for WP geodesics.
We define an ending lamination for a Weil-Petersson geodesic ray. Despite the lack of a natural visual boundary for the Weil-Petersson metric, these ending laminations provide an effective boundary theory that encodes much of its asymptotic CAT(0) geometry. In particular, we prove an ending lamination theorem (Theorem 1.1) for the full-measure set of rays that recur to the thick part, and we show that the association of an ending lamination embeds asymptote classes of recurrent rays into the Gromov-boundary of the curve complex. As an application, we establish fundamentals of the topological d…
In this paper we construct examples of Weil-Petersson geodesics with nonminimal ending laminations which have 1-dimensional limit sets in the Thurston compactification of Teichmüller space.
We prove that for any orientable connected surface of finite type which is not a a sphere with at most four punctures or a torus with at most two punctures, any homeomorphism of the space of geodesic laminations of this surface, equipped with the Thurston topology, is induced by a homeomorphism of the surface.
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.
For a closed surface S, the Hitchin component Hit_n(S) is a preferred component of the character variety consisting of group homomorphisms from the fundamental group pi_1(S) to the Lie group PSL_n(R). We construct a parametrization of the Hitchin component that is well-adapted to a maximal geodesic lamination on the surface. This is a natural extension of Thurston's parametrization of the Teichmueller space of S by shear coordinates associated to a maximal geodesic lamination, corresponding to the case n=2. However, significantly new ideas are needed in this higher dimensional case. The articl…
We consider the space of geodesic laminations on a surface, endowed with the Hausdorff metric d_H and with a variation of this metric called the d_log metric. We compute and/or estimate the Hausdorff dimensions of these two metrics. We also relate these two metrics to another metric which is combinatorially defined in terms of train tracks.
Since their introduction by Thurston, measured geodesic laminations on hyperbolic surfaces occur in many contexts. In [Mor], we have introduced a notion of flat laminations on surfaces endowed with a half-translation structure (that is a singular flat surface with holonomy {+/-Id}, similar to geodesic laminations on hyperbolic surfaces. Here is a sequel to this article that aims at defining transverse measures on flat laminations similar to transverse measures on hyperbolic laminations, taking into account that two different leaves of a flat lamination may no longer be disjoint. One aim of thi…
We introduce an asymmetric distance function, which we call the `left Hausdorff distance function', on the space of geodesic laminations on a closed hyperbolic surface of genus at least 2. This distance is an asymmetric version of the Hausdorff distance between compact subsets of a metric space. We prove a rigidity result for the action of the extended mapping class group of the surface on the space of geodesic laminations equipped with the topology induced from this distance. More specifically, we prove that there is a natural homomorphism from the extended mapping class group into the group …
We study Weil-Petersson (WP) geodesics with narrow end invariant and develop techniques to control length-functions and twist parameters along them and prescribe their itinerary in the moduli space of Riemann surfaces. This class of geodesics is rich enough to provide for examples of closed WP geodesics in the thin part of the moduli space, as well as divergent WP geodesic rays with minimal filling ending lamination. Some ingredients of independent interest are the following: A strength version of Wolpert's Geodesic Limit Theorem proved in Sec.4. The stability of hierarchy resolution paths bet…
We give in this paper bounds for the Morse indices of a large class of simple geodesics on a surface with a generic metric. To our knowledge these bounds are the first that use only the generic hypothesis on the metric.
The Bratteli diagram is an infinite graph which reflects the structure of projections in a C*-algebra. We prove that every strictly ergodic unimodular Bratteli diagram of rank 2g+m-1 gives rise to a minimal geodesic lamination with the m-component principal region on a surface of genus g greater or equal to 1. The proof is based on the Morse theory of the recurrent geodesics on the hyperbolic surfaces.
Given a measured lamination on a finite area hyperbolic surface we consider a natural measure Mon the real line obtained by taking the push-forward of the volume measure of the unit tangent bundle of the surface under an intersection function associated with the lamination. We show that the measure M gives summation identities for the Rogers dilogarithm function on the moduli space of a surface.
The space ML(F) of measured geodesic laminations on a given closed hyperbolic surface F has a canonical linear structure arising in fact from different sources in 2-dimensional hyperbolic (earthquake theory) or complex projective (grafting) geometry as well as in (2+1) Lorentzian one (globally hyperbolic spacetimes of constant curvature). We investigate this linear structure, by showing in particular how heavily it depends on the geometric structure of F, whle to many other extens ML(F) depends only on the topology of F. This is already manifest when we describe in geometric terms the sum of t…
Let $\mathcal{L}$ be a measured geodesic lamination on a complete hyperbolic surface of finite area. Assuming $\mathcal{L}$ is not a multicurve, our main result establishes the existence of a geodesic ray which has finite intersection number with $\mathcal{L}$ but is not asymptotic to any leaf of $\mathcal{L}$ nor eventually disjoint from $\mathcal{L}$. In fact, we show that the endpoints of such rays, when lifted to the universal cover $\mathbb{H}^2$ of $X$, give an uncountable set $h\tilde{\mathcal{L}}\subset S^1$ (called the halo of $\tilde{\mathcal{L}}$), which is disjoint from the endpoin…
We show that the strong asymptotic class of Weil-Petersson (WP) geodesics with narrow end invariant and bounded annular coefficients is determined by the forward ending lamination. This generalizes the Recurrent Ending Lamination Theorem of Brock-Masur-Minsky. As an application we provide a symbolic condition for divergence of WP geodesic rays in the moduli space.
We give a recipe to compute the geometric intersection number of an integral lamination with a particular type of integral lamination on an n-times punctured disk. This provides a way to find the geometric intersection number of two arbitrary integral laminations when combined with an algorithm of Dynnikov and Wiest.
We prove two rigidity results for automorphism groups of the spaces ML(S) of measured laminations on a closed hyperbolic surface S and PML(S) of projective measured laminations on this surface. The results concern the homeomorphisms of ML(S) that preserve the geometric intersection between laminations and the homeomorphisms of PML(S) that preserve the zero sets of these intersection functions.
In this paper we prove that the limit set of any Weil-Petersson geodesic ray with uniquely ergodic ending lamination is a single point in the Thurston compactification of Teichmüller space. On the other hand, we construct examples of Weil-Petersson geodesics with minimal nonuniquely ergodic ending laminations and limit set a circle in the Thurston compactification.
One can realize higher laminations as positive configurations of points in the affine building. The duality pairings of Fock and Goncharov give pairings between higher laminations for two Langlands dual groups $G$ and $G^{\vee}$. These pairings are a generalization of the intersection pairing between measured laminations on a topological surface. We give a geometric interpretation of these intersection pairings in the case that $G=SL_n$. In particular, we show that they can be computed as the length of minimal weighted networks in the building. Thus we relate the intersection pairings to the m…
Given a measured geodesic lamination on a hyperbolic surface, grafting the surface along multiples of the lamination defines a path in Teichmuller space, called the grafting ray. We show that every grafting ray, after reparametrization, is a Teichmuller quasi-geodesic and stays in a bounded neighborhood of a Teichmuller geodesic. As part of our approach, we show that grafting rays have controlled dependence on the starting point. That is, for any measured geodesic lamination Lambda, the map of Teichmuller space which is defined by grafting along Lambda is L-Lipschitz with respect to the Teichm…
We establish a Cauchy type inequality for the geometric intersection number between two 1-dimensional submanifolds in a surface. Some of the basic results in Thurston's theory of measured laminations on surfaces are derived from the Cauchy inequality.
Let $F_N$ be a free group of rank $N\ge 2$, let $μ$ be a geodesic current on $F_N$ and let $T$ be an $\mathbb R$-tree with a very small isometric action of $F_N$. We prove that the geometric intersection number $<T, μ>$ is equal to zero if and only if the support of $μ$ is contained in the dual algebraic lamination $L^2(T)$ of $T$. Applying this result, we obtain a generalization of a theorem of Francaviglia regarding length spectrum compactness for currents with full support. As another application, we define the notion of a \emph{filling} element in $F_N$ and prove that filling elements are …
We extend the unpublished work of M. Handel and R. Miller on the classification, up to isotopy, of endperiodic automorphisms of surfaces. We give the Handel-Miller construction of the geodesic laminations, give an axiomatic theory for pseudo-geodesic lamaniations, show the geodesic laminations satisfy the axioms, and prove that paeudo-geodesic laminations satisfying our axioms are ambiently isotopic to the geodesic laminations. The axiomatic approach allows us to show that the given endperiodic automorphism is isotopic to a smooth endperiodic automorphism preserving smooth laminations ambientl…
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…
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 …
A topological invariant of the geodesic laminations on a modular surface is constructed. The invariant has a continuous part (the tail of a continued fraction) and a combinatorial part (the singularity data). It is shown, that the invariant is complete, i.e. the geodesic lamination can be recovered from the invariant. The continuous part of the invariant has geometric meaning of a slope of lamination on the surface.
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.
Let $S$ be any closed hyperbolic surface and let $λ$ be a maximal geodesic lamination on $S$. The amount of bending of an abstract pleated surface (homeomorphic to $S$) with the pleating locus $λ$ is completely determined by an $(\mathbb{R}/2π\mathbb{Z})$-valued finitely additive transverse cocycle $β$ to the geodesic lamination $λ$. We give a sufficient condition on $β$ such that the corresponding pleating map $\tilde{f}_β:\mathbb{H}^2\to\mathbb{H}^3$ induces a quasiFuchsian representation of the surface group $π_1(S)$. Our condition is genus independent.
Given a connected, oriented, complete, finite area hyperbolic surface $X$ of genus $g$ with $n$ punctures, Mirzakhani showed that the number of multi-geodesics on $X$ of total hyperbolic length $\leq L$ in the mapping class group orbit of a given simple or filling closed multi-curve is asymptotic as $L \to \infty$ to a polynomial in $L$ of degree $6g-6+2n$. We establish asymptotics of the same kind for countings of multi-geodesics in mapping class group orbits of simple or filling closed multi-curves that keep track of the hyperbolic lengths of individual components, proving and generalizing a…
Given an Anosov representation $ρ\colon π_1(S) \to \PSL_{n}(\mathbb{R})$ and a maximal geodesic lamination $λ$ in a surface $S$, we construct shear deformations along the leaves of the geodesic lamination $λ$ endowed with a certain flag decoration, that is provided by the associated flag curve $\mathcal{F}_ρ\colon \Sinf \to \mathrm{Flag}(\mathbb{R}^n)$ of the Anosov representation $ρ$; these deformations generalize to Labourie's Anosov representations Thurston's cataclysms for hyperbolic structures on surfaces. A cataclysm is parametrized by a transverse $n$--twisted cocycle for the orientatio…
Let $Υ$ be a compact, negatively curved surface. From the (finite) set of all closed geodesics on $Υ$ of length $\leq L$, choose one, say $γ_{L}$, at random and let $N (γ_{L})$ be the number of its self-intersections. It is known that there is a positive constant $κ$ depending on the metric such that $N (γ_{L})/L^{2} \rightarrow κ$ in probability as $L\rightarrow \infty$. The main results of this paper concern the size of typical fluctuations of $N (γ_{L})$ about $κL^{2}$. It is proved that if the metric has constant curvature -1 then typical fluctuations are of order $L$, in particular, $(N (…
Thurston introduced shear deformations (cataclysms) on geodesic laminations - deformations including left and right displacements along geodesics. For hyperbolic surfaces with cusps, we consider shear deformations on disjoint unions of ideal geodesics. The length of a balanced weighted sum of ideal geodesics is defined and the Weil-Petersson (WP) duality of shears and the defined length is established. The Poisson bracket of a pair of balanced weight systems on a set of disjoint ideal geodesics is given in terms of an elementary 2-form. The symplectic geometry of balanced weight systems on ide…
Given a hyperbolic surface $§$, a classic result of Birman and Series states that for each $K$, all complete geodesics with at most $K$ self-intersections can only pass through a certain nowhere dense, Hausdorff dimension 1 subset of $§$. We define a self-intersection function for each complete geodesic, which bounds the number of self-intersections in finite length subarcs. We then extend the Birman-Series result to sets of complete geodesics with certain bounds on their self-intersection functions. In fact, we get the same conclusion as the Birman-Series result for sets of complete geodesics…
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…
We derive various inequalities involving the intersection number of the curves contained in geodesics and tight geodesics in the curve graph. While there already exist such inequalities on tight geodesics, our method applies in the setting of geodesics. Furthermore, the method gives inequalities with a uniform constant depending only on the topology of the surface.
Our main point of focus is the set of closed geodesics on hyperbolic surfaces. For any fixed integer $k$, we are interested in the set of all closed geodesics with at least $k$ (but possibly more) self-intersections. Among these, we consider those of minimal length and investigate their self-intersection numbers. We prove that their intersection numbers are upper bounded by a universal linear function in $k$ (which holds for any hyperbolic surface). Moreover, in the presence of cusps, we get bounds which imply that the self-intersection numbers behave asymptotically like $k$ for growing $k$.
For the pants graph, there is little known about the behaviour of geodesics, as opposed to quasigeodesics. Brock-Masur-Minsky showed that geodesics or geodesic segments connecting endpoints satisfying a bounded combinatorics condition, such as the stable/unstable laminations of a pseudo-Anosov, all have bounded combinatorics, \textit{outside of annuli}. In this paper it is shown that there exist geodesics that also have bounded combinatorics within annuli. These geodesics are shown to have finiteness properties analogous to those of tight geodesics in the complex of curves, from which rational…
We study closed geodesics on hyperbolic surfaces, and give bounds for their angles of intersection and self-intersection, and for the sides of the polygons that they form, depending only on the lengths of the geodesics
In this paper1 , we use the coding developed by R. Bowen and C. Series to compute the number of self-intersections of a closed geodesic on a pair of pants. We give lower and upper bounds on the number of self-intersections of a closed geodesic on a pair of pants. We prove a conjecture of Moira Chas and Anthony Phillips in [4]. We get also bounds for the number of closed geodesics whose self-intersection number is very close to the maximal self-intersection number on a pair of pants
The set of axes of hyperbolic elements in a Fuchsian group depends on the commensurability class of the group. In fact, it has been conjectured that it determines the commensurability class and this has been verified in for groups of the second kind by G. Mess and for arithemetic groups by by D. Long and A. Reid. Here we show that the conjecture holds for almost all Fuchsian groups and explain why our method fails for arithemetic groups.
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…
We find a canonical decomposition of a geodesic current on a surface of finite type arising from a topological decomposition of the surface along special geodesics. We show that each component either is associated to a measured lamination or has positive systole. For a current with positive systole, we show that the intersection function on the set of closed curves is bilipschitz equivalent to the length function with respect to a hyperbolic metric. We show that the subset of currents with positive systole is open and that the mapping class group acts properly discontinuously on it. As an appl…