Linearly bounded conjugator property for mapping class groups (Q352117)

Let \(\mathcal{MCG}(\mathcal{S})\) be the mapping class group of an oriented surface \(\mathcal{S}\) of finite type. In this paper, it is shown that there is an exponential-time algorithm to solve the conjugacy problem for \(\mathcal{MCG}(\mathcal{S})\). This result is obtained by establishing the linearly bounded conjugator (L.B.C.) property for \(\mathcal{MCG}(\mathcal{S})\): (Theorem B) There exists a constant \(K\) depending only on a finite generating set \(\Lambda\) for \(\mathcal{MCG}(\mathcal{S})\), such that if \(f,g \in \mathcal{MCG}(\mathcal{S})\) are conjugate, then there is an element \(\omega \in \mathcal{MCG}(\mathcal{S})\) such that \(\omega f \omega^{-1} =g\) and \(|\omega| \leq K (|f|+|g|)\), where \(|\cdot|\) is the word metric by \(\Lambda\). By the classification of elements of \(\mathcal{MCG}(\mathcal{S})\), the proof of Theorem B is broken into three cases, pseudo-Anosov, reducible, and finite order. The case of the pseudo-Anosov elements was settled by \textit{H. A. Masur} and \textit{Y. N. Minsky} [Geom. Funct. Anal. 10, No. 4, 902--974 (2000; Zbl 0972.32011)], using the machinery of hierarchies. In this paper, new tools for the study of finite order mapping classes relying on the machinery of hierarchies are developed, and Theorem B is shown in the case of reducible or finite order.