Lengths of simple loops on surfaces with hyperbolic metrics (Q1416618)

Given a compact orientable surface of negative Euler characteristic, there exists a natural length pairing between the Teichmüller space of the surface and the set of homotopy classes of simple loops and arcs. The length pairing sends a hyperbolic metric and a homotopy class of simple loops or arcs to the length of geodesic in its homotopy class. In this paper, this pairing is studied by making use of the Fenchel-Nielsen coordinates on the Teichmüller space and the Dehn-Thurston coordinates on the space of homotopy classes of curve systems. The main result of the paper establishes Lipschitz type estimates for the length pairing expressed in terms of these coordinates. As a consequence, the authors give a new proof of a result of Thurston-Bonahon that the length pairing extends to a continuous map from the product of the Teichmüller space and the space of measured laminations to the real numbers so that the extension is homogeneous in the second coordinate.