Invariant Radon measures on measured lamination space (Q1014245)

Let \(S\) be an oriented surface of genus \(g>0\) with \(m\geq 0\) punctures and \(3g-3+m\geq 2\). The author classifies all Radon measures on the space of measured geodesic laminations on \(S\) which are invariant under the action of the mapping class group of \(S\). Let \(\mathcal{ML}(S)\) denote the measured geodesic lamination space, and \(MCG(S)\) stands for the mapping class group of \(S\). The main result of the paper is the following Theorem. (1) An invariant ergodic non-wandering Radon measure for the action of \(MCG(S)\) on \(\mathcal{ML}(S)\) coincides with the Lebesgue measure up to scaling. (2) An invariant ergodic wandering Radon measure for the action of \(MCG(S)\) on \(\mathcal{ML}(S)\) is either rational or a standard subsurface measure. The Lebesgue measure is the one defined by Thurston that arises from a natural symplectic structure on \(\mathcal{ML}(S)\). The rational measures are atomic Radon measures supported on orbits of weighted geodesic multi-curves. The subsurface measures are constructed by taking orbits of measures supported on measured geodesic lamination spaces of proper subspaces. The proof involves the notion of conformal densities for the mapping class group. These conformal densities are families of finite Borel measures on the projectivization of \(\mathcal{ML}(S)\) parametrized by points in Teichmüller space. They are defined in analogy to the conformal densities for discrete subgroups of the isometry group of a hyperbolic space. Reviewer's remark: The main result of this paper has also been obtained by \textit{E.~Lindenstrauss} and \textit{M.~Mirzakhani} [Int. Math. Res. Not. 2008, Article ID rnm126 (2008; Zbl 1160.37006)].