Connected components of the strata of quadratic differentials over the Teichmüller space (Q735046)

Let \({\mathcal Q}_g\) be the space of all pairs \((M,q)\), where \(M\) is an element of the Teichmüller space \({\mathcal T}_g\) and \(q\) is a non-zero holomorphic quadratic differential on \(M\). The space \({\mathcal Q}_g\) has a natural stratification in terms of the orders of zeros of quadratic differentials. For a partition \(\lambda=(k_1,\dots ,k_n)\) of the number \(4g-4\), \({\mathcal Q}(\lambda)\) denotes the set of all quadratic differentials that are not squares of abelian differentials and that have zeros of order \(k_i\). Then \({\mathcal Q}_g\) is the union of \({\mathcal Q}(\lambda)\) for all \(\lambda\) with positive entries \(k_i\). In this paper, the author studies an upper bound and a lower bound for the number of connected components of \({\mathcal Q}(\lambda)\). The upper bound is given for a certain type of \(\lambda\), and the lower bound is given for another type of \(\lambda\). As a corollary of the result, if \(\lambda=(2^g,k_1,\dots,k_n)\), where all \(k_i\) are even, the two bounds coincide and the number of the connected components of \({\mathcal Q}(\lambda)\) is exactly \(2^{2g}-1\).