Weil-Petersson Teichmüller space revisited (Q2195209)

This paper is concerned with Weil-Petersson geometry. A sense-preserving homeomorphism of the unit circle is said to belong to the Weil-Petersson class if it has a quasiconformal extension to the unit disk whose Beltrami coefficient is square integrable in the Poincaré metric. \textit{L. A. Takhtajian} and \textit{L.-P. Teo} showed in the paper [Weil-Petersson metric on the universal Teichmüller space. Providence, RI: American Mathematical Society (AMS) (2006; Zbl 1243.32010)] that the space \(\mathrm{WP}(S^1)\) of Weil-Petersson classes of homeomorphisms of the unit circle is endowed with an Hilbert manifold structure. In the paper under review, the authors show that the smooth Hilbert manifold structure on \(\mathrm{WP}(S^1)\) inherited froom \(H^{\frac{1}{2}}\) by the pullback \(g\mapsto \log \vert g'\vert\) is compatible with the Hilbert manifold structure introduced by Takhtajian and Teo. As an application the authors obtain new proofs of results in the papers [the third author, Am. J. Math. 140, No. 4, 1041--1074 (2018; Zbl 1421.30059); the third author and \textit{S. Tang}, Adv. Math. 359, Article ID 106891, 25 p. (2020; Zbl 1436.30015)]. For Part III, see [the first and the third author, Math. Ann. 381, No. 1-2, 875-904 (2021; Zbl 07412159)].