Generalised spin structures on 2-dimensional orbifolds (Q436053)

The authors consider the existence of \(r\)th roots of the unit tangent bundle \(ST\Sigma\) of a closed orientable \(2\)-dimensional hyperbolic orbifold \(\Sigma\). An \(r\)th root of the unit tangent bundle \(ST\Sigma\) is an \(r\)-fold fiberwise connected orientation-preserving covering \(M \to ST\Sigma\) by a Seifert manifold \(M\). If \(r = 2\), then such a covering is a spin structure on \(\Sigma\), and hence \(r\)th roots for \(r > 2\) are the generalized spin structures of the title. These generalized spin structures have appeared in [\textit{E. Witten}, Goldberg, Lisa R. (ed.) et al., Topological methods in modern mathematics. Proceedings of a symposium in honor of John Milnor's sixtieth birthday, held at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, USA, June 14-June 21, 1991. Houston, TX: Publish or Perish, Inc. 235--269 (1993; Zbl 0812.14017)] The first main result gives a criterion for the existence of an \(r\)th root of \(ST\Sigma\) in terms of the orders of the cone points and orbifold Euler characteristic of \(\Sigma\). If an \(r\)th root does exist, then the collection of \(r\)th roots is in shown to be in bijection with a subset of homomorphisms from the fundamental group of \(\Sigma\) to the cyclic group of order \(r\). Additionally, the authors study the action of the diffeomorphism group of \(\Sigma\) on the set of \(r\)th roots, determining the number of orbits and the length of each orbit. This action is reformulated as an action of the outer automorphism group of the orbifold fundamental group. These results are applied to the moduli problem for taut contact circles on \(3\)-manifolds introduced by \textit{H. Geiges} and \textit{J. Gonzalo} [Invent. Math. 121, No. 1, 147--209 (1995; Zbl 1002.53501)]. The authors describe the Teichmüller space and moduli space of taut contact circles on left-quotients of the \(3\)-dimensional Thurston geometry \(\widetilde{\text{SL}_2}\), and in particular the connected components of the moduli space.