Actions of solvable Baumslag-Solitar groups on surfaces with (pseudo)-Anosov elements (Q484408)

Let \(\mathrm{BS}(1,n)=\langle a,b : aba^{-1} = b^n \rangle\) be the solvable Baumslag-Solitar group, where \(n\geq 2\) whose origin goes back to [\textit{G. Baumslag} and \textit{D. Solitar}, Bull. Am. Math. Soc. 68, 199--201 (1962; Zbl 0108.02702)]. The authors study representations of \(\mathrm{BS}(1,n)\) by homeomorphisms of closed surfaces of genus \(g\geq 1\) with (pseudo)-Anosov elements. Thus, they consider a closed surface \(S\) of genus \(g\geq 1\), and homeomorphisms \(f,h:S\rightarrow S\) such that \(hfh^{-1}=f^n\), for some \(n\geq 2\). It is known that \(f\) (or some power of \(f\)) must be homotopic to the identity. Suppose that \(h\) is (pseudo)-Anosov with stretch factor \(\lambda >1\). The paper shows that \(\langle f,h \rangle\) is not a faithful representation of \(\mathrm{BS}(1,n)\) if \(\lambda >n\). As a consequence, there are no faithful representations of \(\mathrm{BS}(1,n)\) by torus homeomorphisms with \(h\) an Anosov map and \(f\) area preserving (regardless of the value of \(\lambda\)). The present results are related to those in [\textit{N. Guelman} and \textit{I. Liousse}, Discrete Contin. Dyn. Syst. 33, No. 5, 1945--1964 (2013; Zbl 1311.37014)], working in the \(C^1\) category.