Pseudo-Anosov dilatations and the Johnson filtration (Q2630774)

In this paper, the authors give explicit lower bounds for the dilatations of pseudo-Anosov mapping classes of a closed orientable surface that lie in the \(k\)-th term of the Johnson filtration of the mapping class group. The motivation of considering such pseudo-Anosov mapping classes comes from the introduction of the spectrum of a subgroup of the mapping class group by considering the dilatations of the collection of pseudo-Anosov elements in that subgroup. In the paper [\textit{B. Farb} et al., Am. J. Math. 130, No. 3, 799--827 (2008; Zbl 1187.37060)], the authors proved that for all \(k\geq 1\), the spectrum of the \(k\)-th group in the Johnson filtration of a closed surface of genus \(\geq 2\) is non-empty and they addressed the question of finding precise estimates. The main theorem of the paper under review answers this question.