Multiple saddle connections on flat surfaces and the principal boundry of the moduli spaces of quadratic differentials (Q1024671)

Given a compact surface \(\Sigma_g\) of genus \(g\), the moduli space of holomorphic abelian differentials is stratified by integer partitions of \(2g-2\). The stratum associated to a partition \((\alpha_1, \dots, \alpha_k)\) consists of those differentials with zeros of those orders. One stratum can degenerate into another by collapsing zeros together. In a previous paper, \textit{A. Eskin, H. Masur} and \textit{A. Zorich} [Publ. Math., Inst. Hautes Étud. Sci. 97, 61--179 (2003; Zbl 1037.32013)] carefully studied these degenerations, and the configurations of \textit{saddle connections} (flat geodesics connection two zeros) that could arise at these boundaries. In this paper, the authors consider the case of \textit{quadratic differentials}. Here, there are significant technical difficulties, in particular, the fact that several curves can shrink simultaneously. To deal with this (and other) technical issues, the authors introduce the concept of two curves on \(\Sigma_g\) being \textit{hat-homologous}, somewhat unfortunately denoted in the paper as ĥomologous. This refers to two curves giving rise to the same cycle in the relative homology the orientation double cover of \(\Sigma_g\) with respect to the singular points of the flat metric. The authors give a nice characterization of being hat-homolgous, as well as describing all rigid configurations of loops, and how to reconstruct surfaces near the boundary from the appropriate point on the boundary.