Large-scale rank of Teichmüller space (Q2012194)

The large-scale geometry of Teichmüller space (with both the Teichmüller and Weil-Petersson metrics) and the mapping class group is studied via understanding quasi-Lipschitz maps from boxes in Euclidean spaces to these spaces. For all sufficiently large boxes in Euclidean space it is shown that there is a large sub-box which gets mapped to a neighborhood of a standard flat in these spaces. As a consequence, the geometric and topological ranks of these spaces are shown to be equal. The key techniques involve the development of the ideas of coarse differentiation from [\textit{A. Eskin} et al., Ann. Math. (2) 176, No. 1, 221--260 (2012; Zbl 1264.22005); ibid. (2) 177, No. 3, 869--910 (2013; Zbl 1398.22012)]. Subsequently, the results of the paper have been axiomatized and extended to general \textit{hierarchially hyperbolic spaces} in [\textit{J. Behrstock} et al., Geom. Topol. 21, No. 3, 1731--1804 (2017; Zbl 1439.20043)].