Shift coordinates, stretch lines and polyhedral structures for Teichmüller space (Q2482225)

In the first part of this paper, the authors study shift coordinates on a sphere \(S\) equipped with three distinguished points and a triangulation whose vertices are the distinguished points. These coordinates parametrize an unfolded Teichmüller space \(T(S).\) This space contains Teichmüller spaces of the sphere with \(m\) boundary components and \(n\) cusps, satisfying \(n+m=3.\) The parametrization of \(T(S)\) by shift coordinates equips this space with a natural polyhedral structure, which describe more precisely as a cone over an octahedron in \(\mathbb R^3 .\) There is a natural linear action of a finite group on \(T(S)\) whose quotient is an augmented Teichmüller space in the usual sense. The authors describe several aspects of the geometry of the space \(T(S).\) In the second part, they use the shift coordinates: to obtain estimates on the behaviour of stretch lines in the Teichmüller space of a surface obtained by gluing hyperbolic pairs of pants and to give formulae that express stretch lines in terms of Fenchel-Nielsen coordinates. They also study in more detail the case of a closed surface of genus 2.