Length of a curve is quasi-convex along a Teichmüller geodesic (Q664889)

Let \(S\) be a closed topological surface of finite topological type, and denote by \(\mathcal{T}(S)\) the Teichmüller space of \(S\). The main result of the paper under review is to show that given a simple closed curve \(\alpha\) on \(S\), the extremal length and hyperbolic length of \(\alpha\) are quasi-convex along any Teichmüller geodesic. That is to say, there exists a constant \(K\) such that for any Teichmüller geodesic \(\mathcal{G}\) and \(x,y,z \in \mathcal{T}(S)\) appearing in that order along \(\mathcal{G}\), \[ \mathrm{Ext}_y(\alpha) \leq K \max ( \mathrm{Ext} _x(\alpha), \mathrm{Ext}_z(\alpha) )\quad\text{and}\quad \mathrm{Hyp}_y(\alpha) \leq K \max ( \mathrm{Hyp} _x(\alpha), \mathrm{Hyp}_z(\alpha) ). \] On the other hand, it is shown that \(\mathrm{Ext}\) and \(\mathrm{Hyp}\) are not in general convex along a Teichmüller geodesic. The main result is used to show that balls in \(\mathcal{T}(S)\) are quasi-convex, that is, there exists a constant \(C\) such that for all \(x \in \mathcal{T}(S)\), \(r>0\) and \(y,z\) in the ball \(B(x,r)\) centred at \(x\) of radius \(r\), the geodesic segment \([y,z]\) is contained in \(B(x, r+c)\). An example is constructed of a long geodesic which stays near the boundary of a ball, hinting that balls in \(\mathcal{T}(S)\) may not be convex.