Lines of minima in Teichmüller space (Q1187732)

This paper is devoted to a study of the geometry of Teichmüller space. The author considers pairs, \(\mu\), \(\nu\) of curves, or more generally, of measured geodesic laminations. In a given Riemann surface with the corresponding Poincaré metric we assume that \(\mu\), \(\nu\) are represented by geodesic laminations. Let \(\ell_ \mu\), \(\ell_ \nu\) denote the `lengths' of \(\mu\), \(\nu\) at a given point of Teichmüller space. The author proves that, under certain circumstances, for each \(t\in (0,1)\) there exists a unique point of Teichmüller space so that \(t\ell_ \mu+(1-t)\ell_ \nu\) has an absolute minimum at this point. This defines a map of \((0,1)\) into \(T_ g\) and this is a `line of minima'. They generalise to \(T_ g\) hyperbolic geodesics in the case \(g=1\). The main theorem proved here is that if \({\mathcal {PL}}_ \nu\) denotes the projective space of projective laminations satisfying the condition above then the map \(\Phi: {\mathcal {PL}}_ \mu\times (0,1)\to T_ g\); \((\nu,t)\mapsto M\), so that \(t\ell_ \mu+(1-t)\ell_ \nu\) is minimal at \(M\), is a homeomorphism. He also proves that any two points are joined by a line of minima and a number of further interesting facts about this concept. Also it is worth remarking that the proofs involve a concept of intersection number of the `total cosine (of the intersection angle)' for pairs of measured laminations which are shown to be very useful tools in this connection.