Nonvarying sums of Lyapunov exponents of abelian differentials in low genus (Q1938772)

Let \(\Omega M_g\) denote the vector bundle of holomorphic one-forms over the moduli space \(M_g\) of genus \(g\) curves minus the zero section. The space \(\Omega M_g\) is stratified according to the zeros of one-forms. Each stratum contains many Teichmüller curves, for which an algorithm given in [\textit{A. Eskin, M. Kontsevich} and \textit{A. Zorich}, ``Sum of Lyapunov exponents of the Hodge bundle with respect to the Teichmüller geodesic flow'', \url{arXiv:1112.5872}] calculates the sum of Lyapunov exponents (one Teichmüller curve at a time). Based on a limited number of computer experiments about a decade ago, Kontsevich and Zorich observed that the sum of Lyapunov exponents is nonvarying among all the Teichmüller curves in a stratum roughly if the genus plus the number of zeros is less than seven, while the sum varies if this sum is greater than seven. The authors of the paper under review find an explanation of this observation, and give a detailed description of what happens for all strata of the moduli space of genera less than or equal to five. More precisely, they give a list of strata with nonvarying sum of Lyapunov exponents, and for some other strata they give upper bounds for these sums. Closely related results are also obtained by the authors in [``Quadratic differentials in low genus: exceptional and non-varying'', \url{arXiv:1204.1707}] and by \textit{F. Yu} and \textit{K. Zuo} in [``Weierstrass filtration on Teichmüller curves and Lyapunov exponents'', \url{arXiv:1203.6053}].