A deformation of Penner's simplicial coordinate (Q431591)

\textit{R. C. Penner} [Commun. Math. Phys. 113, 299--339 (1987; Zbl 0642.32012)] introduced the simplicial coordinate for the decorated Teichmüller space as follows: NEWLINENEWLINE\[NEWLINE\Psi(d,r)(e)=\frac{b+c-a}2+\frac{b'+c'-a'}2,NEWLINE\]NEWLINENEWLINEwhere \((d,s)\) is a decorated hyperbolic metric on the triangulated surface \((S,T)\) with negative Euler characteristic, \(e\) is an edge of \(T\) and \(a, b, c, a', b', c'\) are generalized angles of the triangles containing \(e\). NEWLINENEWLINENEWLINE \textit{B. H. Bowditch} and \textit{D. B. A. Epstein} [Topology 27, No. 1, 91--117 (1988; Zbl 0649.32017)] and \textit{R. C. Penner} [loc. cit.] showed that the simplicial coordinate \(\Psi\) produces a cell decomposition of the decorated Teichmüller space equivariant under the action of the mapping class group. NEWLINENEWLINENEWLINE The author of the paper under review discovers a deformation of Penner's simplicial coordinate: for any \(h\in \mathbb{R}\),NEWLINE NEWLINE\[NEWLINE\Psi_h(d,r)(e)=\int_0^{\frac{b+c-a}2}e^{ht^2}+\int_0^{\frac{b'+c'-a'}2}e^{ht^2}.NEWLINE\]NEWLINE It turns out that this deformation is unique up to constants.NEWLINENEWLINEUsing a variational principle, the author proves that \(\Psi_h\) is indeed a coordinate for the decorated Teichmüller space.NEWLINENEWLINENEWLINE The images of the decorated Teichmüller space under the coordinates \(\Psi_h\) are determined. When \(h\geq 0\), the image is an open convex polytope independent of \(h\). When \(h<0\), the image is a bounded open convex polytope \(P_h(T)\) so that \(P_h(T)\subset P_{h'}(T)\) as \(h<h'\).NEWLINENEWLINEFor \(h\geq 0\), \(\Psi_h\) produces a cell decomposition of the decorated Teichmüller space equivariant under the action of the mapping class group independent of \(h\). This generalizes the result of Bowditch-Epstein and Penner.