Hyperbolic spaces in Teichmüller spaces (Q2256065)

Teichmüller disks are isometrically embedded copies of the hyperbolic plane in the Teichmüller space \(T_{g,k}\) of genus \(g\) surfaces with \(k\) punctures, equipped with the Teichmüller metric. It is natural to ask if higher-dimensional hyperbolic spaces can be (almost) embedded in Teichmüller spaces. In this paper it is shown that for any \(n\geq 2\), \(\mathbb{H}^n\) can be almost isometrically (that is quasi-isometrically with multiplicative constant \(1\)) embedded in some Teichmüller space, with the image being in addition quasi-convex, and, in contrast to the setting of Teichmüller disks, entirely contained in the thick part (that is, the part of Teichmüller space with a lower bound on the length of the shortest curve on surfaces). It is also shown that hyperbolic spaces of any dimension almost isometrically embed in some curve complex. The key cases are those of \(n=2\) and \(n=3\), which proceed by studying Teichmüller spaces of Riemann surfaces with a marked point which are \(\mathbb{H}^2\) bundles over the Teichmüller spaces of the original surface, and understanding the geometry of this bundle.