Natural triangulations associated to a surface (Q1105737)

In his important investigations into the homology of the mapping class group of an orientable surface [Invent. Math. 84, 157-176 (1986; Zbl 0592.57009)] \textit{J. L. Harer} made use of a simplicial complex whose simplices were arc systems on the surface S with respect to a set of points P on S and so-ordinatised by means of measured laminations. In this paper an alternative approach to this complex is given and the results extended with a clarifying description of the intricate relationships between this complex, certain subcomplexes, the Teichmüller space of the punctured surface, the space of marked surface with nodes, the compactification of moduli space etc. On a hyperbolic surface with cusps assign disjoint cusp neighbourhoods. This gives rise to a spine on the surface consisting of points equidistant from more than one cusp neighbourhood boundary. This spine together with certain other geodesics through the vertices of the spine and the cusps give a natural triangulation of the surface which can be easily characterized by some combinatoric and geometric properties. Furthermore the hyperbolic geometry yields parameters on the edges of the spine. The main result is that for a given arc system in Harer's sense with a parameter function on the arcs, there is a unique hyperbolic structure on the surface with punctures such that the arc system is dual to the associated spine and the parameters agree under the duality.