A combinatorial model for the Teichmüller metric (Q2458420)

The author continues here to study the geometry of Teichmüller spaces using combinatorial properties of curves on surfaces. He studies how the length and the twisting parameter of a curve changes along a Teichmüller geodesic. The main result is a formula for the Teichmüller distance between two points in a Teichmüller space, in terms of the combinatorial information extracted from short curves of these two points. Let \(S\) be a surface of finite type with negative Euler characteristic and let \(\sigma_{1}\) and \(\sigma_{2}\) be two points in the thick of the Teichmüller space \(T(S)\) of \(S.\) Let \(\mu_{1}\) and \(\mu_{2}\) be short markings on \(\sigma_{1}\) and \(\sigma_{2},\) respectively. Theorem 1.1. There exists \(k > 0\) such that \[ d_{T}(\sigma_{1},\sigma_{2}) \asymp \sum_{Y}[d_{Y}(\mu_{1},\mu_{2})]_{k} + \sum_{\alpha} \log [d_{\alpha}(\mu_{1},\mu_{2})]_{k}. \] Here the first sum is over all subsurfaces of \(S\) that are not annuli and the second sum is over all simple closed curves on \(S;\) \(d_{Y}(\mu_{1},\mu_{2})\) measures the relative complexity of the restrictions of \(\mu_{1}\) and \(\mu_{2}\) to a subsurface \(Y,\) and \(d_{\alpha}(\mu_{1},\mu_{2})\) measures the relative twisting of \(\mu_{1}\) and \(\mu_{2}\) around a curve \(\alpha;\) the function \([x]_{k}\) is equal to zero when \(x < k \) and is equal to \(x\) when \(x\geq k.\) Also the author proved the following convexity property for the length of a curve along a Teichmüller geodesic. Let \(g : \pmb{\mathbb R} \rightarrow T(S)\) be a geodesic in the Teichmüller space of \(S.\) For a curve \(\alpha\) on \(S,\) denote the hyperbolic length of the geodesic representative of \(\alpha\) at \(g(t)\) by \(l_{t}.\) Theorem 1.2. Assume \(\alpha\) is balanced at \(t_{\alpha}\) and \(s \geq t_{\alpha}\) ( respectively, \(s \leq t_{\alpha}).\) Then, for any \(t \geq s\) (\(t \leq s),\) we have \[ \frac{1}{l_{s}} \succ \frac{1}{l_{t}}. \]