Teichmüller contraction in the Teichmüller space of a closed set in the sphere. (Q5951505)

Let \(E\) be a closed subset of the Riemann sphere, and \(\{0,1,\infty\}\subset E\). The Teichmüller space \(T(E)\) is the set of all \(E\)-equivalence classes of normalized quasiconformal self-mappings of \(\widehat{\mathbb C}\). The author studies the Teichmüller metric on \(T(E)\), generalizes the principle of Teichmüller contraction for \(T(E)\), and uses it to obtain the Hamilton-Krushkaĺ condition for extremal quasiconformal mappings in \(T(E)\). The proof is based on an approximation by finite subsets. The idea is to apply the classical principle of Teichmüller contraction to the Teichmüller space of the sphere punctured at finitely many points of \(E\).