Volume entropy for minimal presentations of surface groups in all ranks (Q2634859)

Work of \textit{J. W. Cannon} and \textit{P. Wagreich} [Math. Ann. 293, No. 2, 239--258 (1992; Zbl 0734.57001)] shows that for the classical presentations of a surface group with rank \(n\geq3\), the denominator of the growth series is the explicit polynomial \(Q_n(x)=x^n-2(n-1)\sum_{j=1}^{n-1}x^j+1\). It follows in particular that this enigmatic polynomial encodes (in the form of its zeros, and in particular its unique real zero larger than \(1\)) the volume entropy of all such surface groups. Here ideas of \textit{R. Bowen} and \textit{C. Series} [Publ. Math., Inst. Hautes Étud. Sci. 50, 153--170 (1979; Zbl 0439.30033)] and their extension by the third author [J. Topol. 7, No. 1, 120--154 (2014; Zbl 1305.57001)] are used to give a dynamical approach resulting in the volume entropy being expressed as the topological entropy of an associated map which admits a finite Markov partition with enough control over its structure to recover the polynomial \(Q_n\) and hence give a new method to achieve the result of Cannon and Wagreich.