Lattice surfaces and smallest triangles (Q522074)

The Veech group of a translation surface is the discrete subgroup of \(\mathrm{SL}(2,\mathbb{R})\) consisting of the derivatives of its affine automorphisms. Lattice surfaces or Veech surfaces are translation surfaces whose Veech groups are lattices. For a lattice surface \(M\), the area of the smallest triangle is defined as \(\mathrm{Area}_T(M)=\inf\{\mathrm{Area}_{\Delta}\} / \mathrm{Area}(M)\), where \(\inf\{\mathrm{Area}_{\Delta}\}\) is the minimal area of embedded triangles formed by saddle connections and \(\mathrm{Area}(M)\) is the total area of the surface. For a lattice surface \(M\), the area of the smallest virtual triangle is defined as \(\mathrm{Area}_{VT}(M)=\frac{1}{2}\inf_{l,l'}||l\times l'||/\mathrm{Area}(M)\), where \(l\) and \(l'\) are the holonomies of non-parallel saddle connections and \(\mathrm{Area}(M)\) is the total area of the surface. In this article the author computes the quantities \(\mathrm{Area}_T\) and \(\mathrm{Area}_{VT}\) of all known primitive lattice surfaces except those in the Prym eigenform loci of \(\mathcal{H}(6)\). He also proves that the known list of lattice surfaces is complete up to \(\mathrm{Area}_{VT}>0.05\). In particular, this means that there are no new lattice surfaces for which the area of the smallest virtual triangle is greater than \(0.05\). His method is based on an algorithm developed by \textit{J. Smillie} and \textit{B. Weiss} [Invent. Math. 180, No. 3, 535--557 (2010; Zbl 1195.57041)].