Filling with separating curves

Planar graphs; geometric and topological aspects of graph theory (05C10) 2-dimensional topology (including mapping class groups of surfaces, Teichmüller theory, curve complexes, etc.) (57K20) Relations of low-dimensional topology with graph theory (57M15) General geometric structures on low-dimensional manifolds (57M50)

Review text

Let \((\alpha, \beta)\) be a pair of simple closed curves on a closed, orientable surface \(S_g\) of the genus \(g\). If the curves \(\alpha\) and \(\beta\) are in minimal position and \(S_g \setminus (\alpha \cup \beta)\) is a disjoint union of topological discs, then it is called a filling pair. A filling pair \((\alpha, \beta)\) is called a separating filling pair if at least one of \(\alpha\) or \(\beta\) is a separating simple closed curve.\N\NIn this paper, the authors are concerned with the existence of minimally intersecting separating filling pairs. More precisely, the authors prove the following theorems.\N\N\textbf{Theorem 1.} There exists a minimally intersecting separating filling pair on \(S_g\) if and only if \(g\) is even and \(g \geq 4\).\N\N\textbf{Theorem 2.} For genus \(g \geq 3\) odd, there exists a separating filling pair on \(S_g\) with four complementary discs.\N\NMoreover, let \(N(g)\) be the number of \(Mod(S_g)\)-orbits of minimally intersecting separating filling pairs. Then, the authors show that \N\[\N\frac{\prod_{k=1}^{(g-4)/2}(3k+5)}{4 \times (2g)^2 \times (\frac{g-4}{2})!} \leq N(g) \leq 2(2g-2)(2g-2)!.\N\]\NFurthermore, constructing a Morse function \(\mathcal{F}_g\) on the moduli space \(\mathcal{M}_g\), they also prove that the cardinality of the set of global minima of \(\mathcal{F}_g\) is equal to the number of Mod\((S_g)\)-orbits of such filling pairs.

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