Generalized staircases: recurrence and symmetry (Q715154)

The authors begin the systematic study of \(\mathbb Z\)-covers of compact translation surfaces, showing in particular that there is a bijection between \(\mathbb Z\)-covers of \(M\) that are ramified over a finite set \(P\), and projective classes in \(H_1(M, P; \mathbb Z)\). Vanishing holonomy then identifies those covers on which for almost every direction the geodesic flow is recurrent. Further results include a sufficient condition for the Veech group of a \(\mathbb Z\)-cover to be a Fuchsian group of the first kind, and examples where this group is a non-arithmetic lattice.