Formal Markoff maps are positive (Q930537)

The paper under review studies a particular instance of the so called Laurent phenomenon. The term was coined by \textit{S. Fomin} and \textit{A. Zelevinsky} [Adv. Appl. Math. 28, No. 2, 119--144 (2002; Zbl 1012.05012)], who noticed that certain inductively defined sequences of rational functions take only Laurent polynomial values. Moreover, based on their initial observations, they conjectured that coefficients of these Laurent polynomials are always positive integers. So far positivity of these coefficients has only been established in a special case pertaining to Markoff numbers by J. Propp, who showed that these coefficients count colorings of particular graphs. In the present paper, the author considers a certain Markoff map associated to the set of simple closed geodesics on a hyperbolic one-cusped torus. The values of this map are given by a family of Laurent polynomials \[ f_s(X,Y,Z) = \sum_{\alpha,\beta \in \mathbb Z} F_s(\alpha,\beta) \frac{X^{1+\alpha} Y^{1+\beta}}{Z^{1+\alpha+\beta}} \in \mathbb Z[X^{\pm 1}, Y^{\pm 1}, Z^{\pm 1}], \] which is indexed by \(s \in \mathbb P^1 \mathbb Q\). The author proves that the integer coefficients \(F_s(\alpha,\beta)\) are nonzero only if \((\alpha,\beta)\) satisfies a certain natural parity condition, in which case the corresponding coefficient is positive. Moreover, he shows that all monomials in the Newton polygon of \(f_s\) which satisfy this parity condition have nonzero coefficients.