Agol cycles of pseudo-Anosov 3-braids (Q6110226)

An \textit{Agol cycle} is a combinatorial object (a sequence of measured train tracks encoding the transverse measured foliation of a pseudo-Anosov map) which is a complete invariant of the conjugacy class of a pseudo-Anosov mapping class of a surface [\textit{I. Agol}, Contemp. Math. 560, 1--17 (2011; Zbl 1335.57026)]; cf. a paper by \textit{C. D. Hodgson} et al. [Exp. Math. 25, No. 1, 17--45 (2016; Zbl 1337.57043)]. In the present paper, the authors consider the case of the 3-punctured disk and of pseudo-Anosov 3-braids, studying necessary and sufficient conditions for Agol cycles of pseudo-Anosov 3-braids to be equivalent. They present infinitely many pseudo-Anosov 3-braids belonging to distinct conjugacy classes but with the same dilatation. Considering then pseudo-Anosov 3-braids with the same dilatation, they give three equivalent conditions (a topological, a number theoretical and a numerical one) for two such 3-braids to have combinatorially isomorphic Agol cycles.