Necessary and sufficient conditions for McShane's identity and variations (Q2498436)

Let \(T\) be a once punctured torus with a complete, finite volume hyperbolic structure. In his Ph.~D. thesis McShane (1991) proved that \(\sum_\gamma{1\over 1+e^{l(\gamma)}}={1 \over 2}\). The sum is over all simple closed geodesics on \(T\), and \(l(\gamma)\) means the hyperbolic length of~\(\gamma\). Further \textit{B. H. Bowditch} [Proc. London. Math. Soc. (3) 77(3), 697--736 (1998; Zbl 0928.11030)] gave the following generalization of McShane's identity. Set \(\Gamma=\pi_1(T)\). Let \(\rho:\Gamma\to SL(2,{\mathbb C})\) be a type-preserving representation satisfying the so-called \(BQ\)-condition. Then \(\sum_{g\in {\mathcal E}}h(\text{ tr} \rho(g))={1 \over 2}\). Here \(h(x)=(1/2)\left(1-\sqrt{1-4/x^2}\right)\) and \({\mathcal E}\) is the set of conjugacy-up-to-inverse classes of elements of \(\Gamma\) which correspond to free homotopy classes of nonoriented essential simple closed curves on \(T\). Bowditch used essentially Markoff triples in his proof. (A \(\mu\)-Markoff triple is an ordered triple \((x,y,z)\in {\mathbb C}^3\) satisfying \(x^2+y^2+z^2-xyz=\mu\).) In the present paper the authors find necessary and sufficient conditions for the generalized McShane identity to hold. We describe one of the main results. Let \({\mathcal X}=\text{ Hom}(\Gamma,SL(2,{\mathbb C}))/\!\!/SL(2,{\mathbb C})\) and \({\mathcal X}_\tau=\{\rho\in{\mathcal X}| \text{ tr}\rho(aba^{-1}b^{-1})=\tau\}\). Here \((a,b)\) is any pair of generators of \(\Gamma\). Let \(h_\tau(x)=\log{1+(e^\nu-1)h(x)\over 1+(e^{-\nu}-1)h(x)}\), \(\nu=\cosh^{-1}(-\tau/2)\). Corollary 1.14. Suppose \(\rho\in {\mathcal X}_\tau\) with \(\tau\neq \pm 2\). Then \(\sum_{g\in {\mathcal E}}h_\tau(\text{ tr} \rho(g))=\nu\) \((\text{ mod} \, 2\pi i)\), and the sum converges absolutely iff \(\rho\) satisfies the extended \(BQ\)-conditions. These conditions are some restrictions on the range of values of a \(\mu\)-Markoff map associated with \(\rho\) (\(\mu=\tau+2\)). The \(\mu\)-Markoff map is defined with the help of the correspondence \(\rho\mapsto (\text{ tr}\rho(a), \text{ tr}\rho(b), \text{ tr}\rho(ab))\) between \(\rho\in {\mathcal X}_\tau\) and \(\mu\)-Markoff triples. The authors also give a version of Bowditch's variation of McShane's identity for once punctured torus bundles, in the case when the monodromy is generated by a reducible element (Corollary 1.15).