Origami edge-paths in the curve graph (Q2033205)

An \textit{origami} (or flat structure) on a closed oriented surface \(S_g\) of genus \(g \ge 2\) is obtained from a finite collection of Euclidean unit squares by gluing each right edge to a left one and each top edge to a bottom one by translations. The authors start by proving that a \textit{coherent filling pair of curves} naturally corresponds to an origami, and call such pairs \textit{origami pairs of curves}; here a pair of two non-seperating simple closed curves is \textit{filling} if the curves seperate the surface into open disks, and \textit{coherent} if the geometric (minimal) and algebraic intersection numbers of the curves coincide. A basic object of the paper is then the \textit{non-seperating curve graph} \(\mathcal{NS}(S_g)\) of \(S_g\) whose vertices are isotopy classes of non-seperating simple closed curves (two vertices bound an edge if they can be represented by disjoint curves). ``Our main result establishes that for any origami pair \((\alpha, \beta)\) of curves there exists an \textit{origami edge path}, a sequence of curves, \(\alpha = \alpha_0, \alpha_1, \alpha_2, \dots , \alpha_n = \beta\), such that \(\alpha_i\) intersects \(\alpha_{i+1}\) exactly once; any pair \((\alpha_i, \alpha_j)\) is coherent; and thus, any filling pair \((\alpha_i, \alpha_j)\) is also an origami. With their existence established, we offer shortest origami edge-paths as an area of investigation.''