A note on the McShane's identity for Hecke groups (Q2065361)

Given a hyperbolic surface \(S\) obtained as a quotient of the hyperbolic plane by a Fuchsian group, a simple closed geodesic on \(S\) is a non-self-intersecting loop on \(S\) which lifts to a geodesic in the hyperbolic plane. On a finite area surface, the number of distinct (isotopy classes of) simple closed geodesics on \(S\) of length below a fixed bound is finite. McShane gave identities involving the lengths of simple closed geodesics when \(S\) is a punctured torus in his thesis, and when \(S\) has other topological types (for example [\textit{G. McShane}, Ann. Acad. Sci. Fenn., Math. 31, No. 1, 31--38 (2006; Zbl 1094.57019)]) by exploiting Weierstrass points, i.e. points fixed by involutions of \(S\). The present paper provides a similar identity for specific surface subgroups of Hecke groups, defined by the author of the present paper in previous work [\textit{K. Farooq}, Conform. Geom. Dyn. 23, 262--282 (2019; Zbl 1453.20068)]. It is shown (Theorem 4.1 and Corollary 5.3) that, given a Weierstrass point \(w\), for each geodesic \(\gamma\) passing through \(w\) which spirals into a simple geodesic \(h\) not containing \(w\), there is a unique pair of pants, symmetric with respect to an involution of \(S\) fixing \(w\), and embedded in \(S\), containing \(\gamma\). Once this result is established, the identity is proven by studying the unit tangent circle to the surface at the Weierstrass point \(w\). It is shown that there are gaps in the tangent circle, where the corresponding tangent vectors do not give rise to simple geodesics, whose angle measures can be expressed as functions of the lengths of the cuffs of the pairs of pants. These measures are shown to sum to \(2\pi\), giving the stated identity.